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THE SKY MOVIES 



By GAYLORD JOHNSON 

THE STAR PEOPLE 
THE SKY MOVIES 



THE SKY MOVIES 



BY 
GAYLORD JOHNSON 

AUTHOR OF "the STAR PEOPLE" 



WITH OVER ONE HUNDRED PICTURES 



" I see a great round wonder rolling through space, 

I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping, 

and the sunlit part on the other side, 
I see the curious and rapid change of the Ught and the shade, 
I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as 

my land is to me." 

Walt Whitman: Salut au Monde. 



5frm ^nrk 

THE MACALLAN COMPANY 

1922 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1922 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1922. 



Printed in the United States of America 

-JUL 26 72 

©CI.A681i03 

■■.^ ■ 1 



TO "SAINT ELIZABETH' 



We tell children things in the clearest words at our command. They 
say the words back to us and we are satisfied that they have learned 
something. We think that because they have the words they have the 
idea. A little investigation will show that very often the words are 
all they have, the sounds, and nothing whatever of the idea. 

So, whenever you teach a child something new, be sure to tie the 
stranger to an old familiar friend. If that does not seem possible, use 
pictures and drawings and illustrations until the child has a group of 
related ideas concerning this new idea. Then let him talk it back, 
making his meaning clear by word and gesture and drawing. 

Beware the empty word! 

Angelo Patri. 



PROGRAM OF THE PLAY 

First Reel — page 

In which the children unexpectedly meet Mr. Puck in 
Grandfather's Stump Meadow — and Learn Why 
Fairy Rings are needed in the World 1 

Second Reel — 

In which Grandfather and Grandmother give wrong 
answers to Puck's Riddle because they don't know 
the real one — and the hired man^ Otto, steers the 
children right without knowing it 9 

Third Reel — 

Why the Princess Istar loses and gains her jewelled 
robes — and more about the Optick Brothers and 
what they learned of Luna Moon 20 

"Jack and Jill in the Moon" — 

The monthly Sky Movie — photographed by the As- 
tronomers at Yerkes Observatory 33 

Fourth Reel — 

In which the children learn how to see thoughts — just 
like pictures — and how Monsieur Foucault proved 
that the world spins like a top Q5 

Fifth Reel — 

In which Uncle Henry makes a funny kind of Sun-Dial 
— the children learn to tell time by the Big Dipper 
— and Paul's camera proves again that the world 
turns round every day 90 



viii PROGRAM OF THE PLAY 

Sixth Reel — page 

The children get acquainted with Old Sol's family — 
and find Venus, Mars, and the Earth growing in a 
Pea pod 123 

Seventh Reel — 

In which Betty finds out how much can be told with- 
out words — and we get better acquainted with Old 
Sol's children and grandchildren 147 



THE SKY MOVIES 



i 



THE SKY MOVIES 

FIRST REEL 

IN WHICH THE CHILDREN UNEXPECTEDLY MEET MR. 

PUCK IN grandfather's STUMP MEADOW AND 

LEARN WHY FAIRY RINGS ARE NEEDED IN THE 
WORLD 

In the twilight of that June evening when the Young 
Moon was a thin bent bow in the West, she looked 
across Grandfather's Woods and saw three children 
come out from the dusky trees. Then she watched 
them start across Grandfather's Stump Meadow 
toward the farm house, where a light was already 
shining in the kitchen window. 

Peter and Paul, the twin boys, were ahead, and 
Betty, their sister, brought up the rear. 

Suddenly the Young Moon saw the three stop, and, 
if her hearing is good, she may have heard their 
high-pitched exclamations of delighted surprise at 
what they saw. 

"O, look!" cried Paul, "a reg'lar circus ring of 
toad-stools!" 

"There's 'most a million!" exclaimed Peter, '^at 
least, 'most a hundred — or fifty!" 

'*0oo! it's a Fairy Ring!" breathed Betty in a loud 
stage-whisper, while she looked expectantly through 



2 THE SKY MOVIES 

the gathering dusk for any of the Little People who 
might be about. 

Not seeing any, however, she confided to Peter and 
Paul, 

"Uncle Henry told me to watch for a Fairy Ring 
when we got up here at Grandpa's. Uncle Henry 
says that if you stand in a Fairy Ring, and wish 
and wish, awful hard, to truly know all 'bout every- 
thing that you want to know 'bout, that you will 
know." 

''Humph!" said Peter, with the disdain of eleven 
years for the credulity of eight. 

''Well, I guess Uncle Henry ought to know," in- 
sisted Betty, "he says he used to do it — right up here 
at Grandpa's — maybe in this very ring — and I guess 
you won't dare to say, Mr. Peter, that Uncle Henry 
don't know a lot — most likely a million times more 
'an you do!" 

Under this heavy gust of woman's logic Peter bent 
like a grass stem in the breeze. 

"Well," he countered, "if you believe all that's 
true, why don't you just step into this good old ring 
of toadstools right now — and wish hard to know 
something.^ An' then we'll see who's right about it. 
Maybe Uncle Henry is right," Peter finished, leaving 
a wide opening for his own escape, in case the toad- 
stool ring proved to have magic powers after all. 

"Sure," agreed Paul, "think of something you 
wanta know, Betty, an' then get in the ring an' wish 
to know it, an' then we'll see if Uncle Henry is right. 
Mos' likely he is," Paul conceded in advance. 



i 



FIRST REEL 3 

After a short pause he added impressively, 

''He is generally sure of his facks." 

The others turned to Paul and looked at him so 
disapprovingly after this last remark that he knew 
they had detected his bold theft from Papa's collec- 
tion of favorite phrases. 

''Go on, Betty," urged Peter. "Wish to know 
something quick an' step inside the ring! We can't 
stay out here after it gets real dark, an' you may not 
find out what you wish to know all at once." 

Betty looked across Grandfather's Woods, toward 
the slim, brightening bow of the Young Lady Moon, 
and said, 

"All right — I wish — I want to know — what makes 
the lovely Lady Moon grow bigger, full, and thin 
again every month." 

Then, while the twin boys held their breaths in 
half-scared expectancy, Betty stepped confidently 
into the wide, grassy, magic circle of dim white um- 
brellas, into the enchanted Fairy Ring, and stood — 
waiting in simple faith for her beloved Uncle Henry's 
prophecy to be fulfilled. 

The boys gazed silently for a full minute, looking 
first at Betty and then at the Young Lady Moon. 
Nothing happened. Then they heard Betty murmur, 

"I've always wondered about you. Lady Moon — 
I'm wondering now — why you're slim — and why 
you grow full — and why — " 

She stopped, startled, half afraid, for from the 
edge of Grandfather's Woods there came a sudden, 
soft whirring like the humming of bees in the apple 



4 THE SKY MOVIES 

orchard in blossom time — and out of one of the dim, 
velvety spaces between the trees poured a glimmer- 
ing swarm of fireflies. 

Straight across the Stump Meadow toward the 
Fairy Ring they came — while the whirring grew 
louder, and the soft gleams grew brighter. 

Three times round the heads of the bewildered 
children the swarm of fireflies flew — and three times 
they circled a low stump just inside the Fairy Ring — 
then back for Grandfather's Woods — like a flight 
of tiny illuminated aeroplanes. 

The children were all gazing open-mouthed after 
them when they heard the merriest little laugh — 
and it seemed to come from almost under their 
feet! 

Peter and Paul looked right and left, and turned 
round and looked, without seeing anything — but 
Betty clapped her hands and cried, 

''Oh, I see him! In a green suit! On the stump, 
Peter! Look on the stump, Paul!" 

Peter and Paul did, and rubbed their eyes and 
looked again, but not a thing could they see — except 
a pad of green moss in a damp hole in the flat top 
of the stump. 

But in a moment they heard the merry, tinkling 
little laugh again and again — and after it a gasp for 
breath — as if the laugher's sides fairly ached with 
his explosion of merriment. 

Then, between gasps, came words, 

''Tell — tell yon naughty ones — tell Petrus and 
Paulus — to step in the Ring. They will see naught — 



FIRST REEL 5 

of me or truth — except in Wonder Ring. Step in- 
side! — Step inside!" 

Peter and Paul did — and as soon as they crossed 
the magic circle of ivory-white umbrellas they saw 
what Betty had said — a tiny elf-like man — all in a 
green suit — with long, green hose, and green shoes 
with long points. 

His plump-cheeked, red face was seamed and 
wrinkled like a sound apple that dries and shrinks 
small, and his eyes were pale blue like a baby's. 

When he laughed, his mouth was as wide as his 
ears, but at other times it was as pursed and puckered 
as Grandfather's tobacco pouch when the draw- 
strings are tight, and from his green hood strayed 
wisps of sun-bleached hair. 

Betty's first thought, after her suprise at seeing 
him at all, was a desire to have the little foot-high 
manlet for a doll. 

''Ods me!" cried Puck, for it was he himself, none 
other, "they see now — aye, they see now\ Ha, ha! 
Ha, ha, ha! Aye, but they are the naughty ones 
yon!" 

"Why ^.ve they naughty, please, Mr. — ^Mr. — sir.^" 
inquired Betty, after a moment's hesitation. 

"He, he, he! ha, ha, ha!" rattled the little green 
man's wide-mouthed laugh. He sounded for all 
the world like a good-natured squirrel chattering 
from*a tree. Then he puckered his tobacco-pouch 
lips and solemnly winked one sparkling blue eye 
at Paul and the other at Peter before he said mock- 
iiigly. 



6 THE SKY MOVIES 

"Maybe Uncle Henry is right — Most likely he is — 
He is generally sure of his f acks. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ! '^ 

"My, aren't we sassy for our size!" exclaimed 
Paul, half angry at the mockery. 

"The Lady Luna Moon," stated Puck, capri- 
ciously changing the subject, as he looked over his 
shoulder toward the West, "has bought her ticket 
for China. It's a round-trip one though. She'll 
be back — with Columbus or Magellan — ^probably 
with both," he finished solemnly, quite as if he 
expected it to happen and wouldn't have been 
surprised to see Columbus right there in the Stump 
Meadow. 

"I like you," said Betty impulsively, "but you 
certainly talk so — so — well, I mean — " 

Betty had started to say something quite impolite, 
and didn't quite know how to finish. 

"Ods me!" cried Puck, "first you stand in a 
Fairy Ring, and wonder about Lady Luna — and 
then think I'm daft when I come! I know well 
I'm not crazy — I'm the Answer — the Answer to 
your 'wondering' — the slave of every Fairy Wonder 
Ring in the wide world's meadows — I'm The Joy 
of Finding Out Things. I sat on Columbus' shoulder 
when he saw the New World's land; I took the first 
peep through his new telescope with Galileo; I 
watched with Edison, while his first electric light 
bulb glowed, then brightened and shone. 

" They were all called crazy too, but they didn't 
care, for they had me — the Answer to their wonder- 
ings — The Joy of Finding Out Something New.'' 



FIRST REEL 7 

"Please Mr.— ah— sir — " began Betty. 

"Call me Puck — t'will do," said the little man 
in green. 

"Please, then, Mr. Puck, did Mr. Edison stand 
in a Fairy Ring and ask to know about the electric 
light.^" 

"Certainly, whether he knew it or not!" cried 
Puck. "No answer ever comes to the wonderings 
of man or child — except in a Fairy Ring! That's 
why men who delight to walk much in the fields to 
think are the ones who so often find out marvellous 
new things. It's because — sooner or later — they 
walk into a Fairy Ring — a Wonder Ring — and the 
Answer to all their wondering comes to them there." 

"Then tell me, please, Mr. Puck," said Betty, 
"what I wondered about — why the Lady Luna Moon 
is thin, and grows full, and thin again, all in one 
month." 

"Oh, ho!" cried Puck, "the little lady wants to 
know all — like that." 

He snapped his fingers, winked one blue eye and 
then the other, and went on, 

"If you can tell me, little lady, only one thing I 
will ask you about Luna Moon, I will tell you all 
you desire to know of her." 

"All right," said Betty, a little disappointed to 
find that she had to give answers as well as get them 
in Wonder Rings, "I'll try to tell you — if I know." 

"Here it is," said Puck. "What does the Lady 
Luna Moon always hunt, with her bent bow.^^" 

Betty thought and thought, and so did Peter and 



8 THE SKY MOVIES 

Paul, while Puck sat cross-legged on his stump and 
whistled a strange old tune through his lips, pursed 
now like Grandfather's pouch. 

At last Puck stood up, hopped down among the 
cowslips that splashed the soft sod with gold, and 
said, 

''Tell me what it is the Lady Luna hunts — on 
tomorrow's eve — here in the Ring — and I will be 
here to tell you more. Petrus, bring a lantern; 
Paulus, thy fresh-shaved round head; little lady, the 
white ball thy dog runs after. To-morrow's eve — 
in the Ring." 

Then Puck stepped across the edge of the mush- 
room ring and w^as gone. One second he was there, 
clad in green — and the next there was nothing there 
— except grass and cowslips. 

''This sure is a Wonder Ring, all right!" cried 
Peter. "He makes us wonder more, instead of less." 

"What can he want with a lantern — and 'Rags" 
ball, and my head.^" mused Paul, as the children 
trudged toward the welcoming light in Grandmother's 
kitchen window\ 

Betty said nothing. She was thoughtfully watch- 
ing Luna Moon's bent bow as it sank in the sky be- 
yond Grandfather's Woods — after the vanished sun. 

She was still trying to guess the answer to Puck'^s 
riddle when she fell asleep in the little room under 
the eaves, where the ceiling slanted just like the roof, 
and the big bed made it seem a long time until one 
would be really grown up. 



J 



SECOND REEL 

IN WHICH GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER GIVE 
WRONG ANSWERS TO PUCK's RIDDLE BECAUSE THEY 
don't know the real ONE^ — AND THE HIRED MAN, 
OTTO, STEERS THE CHILDREN RIGHT WITHOUT 
KNOWING IT 

Next morning Betty and her brothers ''interviewed" 
everybody on Grandpa's farm, and no one was 
permitted to escape until he had told all he knew 
about Luna Moon and her bent bow. 

Betty began with Grandpa himself. The ''com- 
mittee of inquiry" raced out to the barn where he 
was cleaning a harness, and Betty walked up to him 
with an air of such serious purpose that Grandpa 
said, with an alarmed look on his face, 

"I'm the man you're looking for. Miss Sheriff. 
I'm Captain Kidd, miss; you'll find the treasure 
chest of 'pieces of eight' buried under the third 
apple tree in the second row from the barn. Take 
it and spare my life. I'll never run up the 'Skull 
and Bones ' at the mast head of a ship again, so help 
me Davy Jones!" 

At this Betty laughed gleefully, and the boys 
took the harness away from Grandpa and made him 
sit down on the edge of the watering trough. 



10 THE SKY MOVIES 

Then Betty said, quite as regally as good Queen 
Bess might have done to the real Captain Kidd, if 
they had happened to live at the same time, and if 
they had happened to be socially acquainted, and if 
Captain Kidd had happened to ask such a little favor 
of her, say while they were drinking tea together, 

''AH right. Captain, your life is spared — on one 
condition. We want to know what it is that the 
Lady Luna Moon always hunts and shoots arrows 
at with her bent bow. Tell me that, Captain Kidd, 
or you shall walk the plank and swing from a yard- 
arm." 

"Both.?^ Then I'll tell you all I know. Madam 
Sheriff," said Grandpa seriously. ''My grandpa 
told me, and he knew. You see it's like this. When 
the young moon's bow lies on its back, with the 
horns up, so that the old Indian Ossawatomie can 
hang his rifle and powder horn on them, it is going 
to be a wet month, and the old Indian Ossawatomie 
will stay home from hunting. But if the young 
crescent moon stands up on one horn, so that the 
rifle and powder horn would slip off, why it's going 
to be a dry month and Ossawatomie will be able to 
go hunting. Now please, Miss Sheriff, I'd like to 
finish cleaning that harness." 

"I guess," said Peter slowly, ''that we'll have to 
get that plank ready for Captain Kidd to walk after 
all." 

"Don't you really know what Luna Moon shoots 
her arrows at.^" asked Betty disappointedly. 

Grandpa only shook his head slowly and sadly 



SECOND REEL 11 

and begged to be given until sunset to live, in order 
to go to town with a load of hay and play one more 
game of checkers on his return. So the ''committee 
of inquiry" went in search of Grandma. 

She was in the kitchen ''stirring up a cake," but 
as soon as the oven door was closed upon it she 
walked over to the calendar on the kitchen wall and 
tried to answer Betty's question about Luna Moon. 

"You see, dearie," said Grandma, "the moon 
looks like this when it's in the 'first quarter.'" 

Grandma pointed to this picture of it on the 
calendar. 




Then she pointed to the next moon-picture on the 
calendar and said, 




"And when the moon is in the 'last quarter' it 
curves the other way. You see the first quarter of 



12 THE SKY MOVIES 

the moon in the West just after sunset. I saw it last 
evening. But you see the last quarter in the Eastern 
sky just before sunrise. You will see it there in 
about a month from now." 

"I never noticed that!" exclaimed Paul. 

"I didn't either," said Betty. 

''I always say that people who live in cities," said 
Grandma, ''miss the best part of the day. They 
never see anything that happens in the world before 
eight o'clock." 

Betty looked from the 'first quarter' picture of 
the moon on the calendar to the 'last quarter' 
picture, and back again. 

"Seems as if we ought to understand it now," she 
said, "but I don't. Do you.^" she asked, turning 
brightly to Peter and Paul. 

They shook their heads and looked expectantly 
at Grandma. She tried hard to rise to the emer- 
gency. 

"You see, children," she said, "when the first 
quarter of the moon lies on its back, with the horns 
straight up, so that the water in it can't run out of 
the horns, why then it's going to be a dry month; 
but when the first quarter stands up on one end, 
like it is in the calendar picture, then the water in 
the moon can run out, and it will be a wet month. 
My father, your great-grandpa Bassett, told me 
that when I was no higher than a chair, and I've 
never seen it fail," finished Grandma. 

The children were puzzled; they looked at each 
other, and then at their smiling Grandmother. In a 



SECOND REEL 13 

moment Peter's eyes narrowed in a roguish way 
they had, and he said, "I wonder, did great-grandpa 
Bassett know Ossawatomie?" 

Then something strange happened. Grandma 
actually blushed red in her cheeks, laughed, and 
shoved the "committee of inquiry" out of the 
kitchen. She asked Peter how he thought she was 
going to get the kitchen work done before noon, with 
three live question marks standing around. 

Betty was the last one out of the room, for she 
stopped to slip her hand into the big cooky-jar in 
passing, and she heard Grandma murmur to herself, 
''Imagine his telling those children that old Indian 
nonsense!" 

Either Grandpa or Grandma must be wrong 
about the way Luna Moon's bow tipped when it 
was going to be wet weather. They just couldn't 
both be right — and neither of them had given Betty 
the answer to Mr. Puck's riddle. 

The next witness examined by the "committee 
of inquiry" was Otto, Grandpa's hired man. The 
children found him cultivating the hills of young 
corn with "Molly" and "Jerry." 

Otto stopped the team at the end of a row and 
listened attentively to Betty's question about what 
Luna Moon shoots her arrows at. 

Then Otto twisted his faded, straw-colored mus- 
tache a moment, while his blue eyes looked off 
across the field. They seemed to be looking clear 
across the ocean to Otto's "native place." 

"I remember," said Otto, "my old schoolmaster, 



14 



THE SKY MOVIES 



ven I go to school in Steinplatz, tell me that. I 
show you." 

Then Otto took the butt end of his whip and wrote 
these two German words in the soft cultivated dirt 
of the cornfield: 




Then Otto changed the curves of the letter A and 
Z to look like this and wrote ''last quarter" and 
''first quarter" opposite each moon picture. 



LAST 



I 



msr 

QUARTER 




SECOND REEL 15 

"Oh, I see!" cried Betty, '^WTiat do the German 
words mean. Otto? Do they mean 'first quarter' 
and 'last quarter?'" 

"No, no," said Otto, "I will show you. 'Ab- 
gehen^ means 'going avay' and ' Zunehmen' means 
'increasing.' You see the first quarter moon is 
'increasing' toward being full; and the last quarter 
moon is 'going avay' from being full. The letters 
are bent the same vay like the moon's bows — vun 
vun vay and vun the odder. You see it now!" Otto 
decided, as he picked up the reins and clucked to 
"Molly" and "Jerry." 

The children were still looking at Otto's drawings 
in the dirt when Paul suddenly cried, 

"Oh, listen! I think I got the answer — to Puck's 
conundrum!" 

"Shoot!" said Peter. 

"It's like this," said Paul. "Luna Moon's first 
quarter bow aims down toward the sunset in the 
West in the evening. 

"Yes," said Peter. 

"Well," Paul went on excitedly, "and her last 
quarter bow aims down toward the sunrise in the 
East in the morning, doesn't it?" 

"Sure," said Peter, "we know that a'ready." 

"Well, "said Paul, "just let's draw arrows into 
Otto's moon-bows — and then put 'suns' in — one 
for the sunset-sun and 'nother for the sunrise-sun, 
and I bet we'll see what Puck meant!" 

Paul quickly did it, and Otto's artistic efforts 
looked like this: 



16 



THE SKY MOVIES 



LAST 



^\K^ 






FWST 
QUARTER 




''Oh, I see!" cried Peter and Betty together, 
while they each gave Paul a look which proved that 
a prophet can have honor in his own country. 

''Oh," exclaimed Betty, "the Lady Luna Moon 
always hunts the sun with her bent bow. The sunl 
That's what we'll tell Puck this evening. We've 
got the answer. The 52^n.^" 

Just then the breeze shook the branches of one 
of the apple trees at the edge of the cornfield, and 
something dropped lightly on Paul's head and 
bounded to the ground between the children. 

They thought it was a small, green baby apple, 
when, of a sudden. Puck's squirrel-like, chattering 
laugh came up from under their very feet. It was 
really Puck, quite plainly to be seen, in spite of the 
fact that the children were not in the Fairy Ring at 
all. 



SECOND REEL 17 

'*\Miere did you come from?" cried Betty. '*0h, 
how you scared me!" 

"I brought the right answer," piped the Httle 
green man with the puckery face. "The right answer 
shouldn't frighten anybody. The only time when 
terrible things begin to happen is when you say 
'twice seven is sixteen.'" 

Puck pursed his tobacco-pouch lips, winked one 
blue, sparkling eye at Peter and the other at 
Paul, and suddenly sprang straight upward, land- 
ing on his feet, like a bird, upon a low-hanging 
twig of the apple tree. Then he sat down on 
the thin twig, as expertly as tight-wire walkers 
do in the circus, began to sway to and fro in the 
breeze, and started to talk in his pipy little 
voice. 

''Mr. Dexter R. Optick," began Puck, "lives in 
the valley just to the West of Nose Hill — and Mr. 
Sinister L. Optick, his brother, lives Eastward, in 
the valley just over the hill." 

"Are they brothers, Mr. Puck.^" inquired Peter. 

"Aye, twin brothers," said Puck, "but neither has 
ever seen the other." 

"How funny!" shrilled Betty. "Haven't they 
ever seen each other?" 

"Well," said Puck, ''hardly ever. Only by hear- 
say, or rather mirror-say. Mr. Dexter R. Optick 
sees everything that goes on to the West of Nose 
Hill, and Mr. Sinister L. Optick can tell you all the 
matters that happen to the East of it, but when it 
comes to knowing each others' doings, they just 



18 



THE SKY MOVIES 



have to believe what Looking-GIass, the Gossip, 
tells them, or be ignorant." 

This picture shows you which sides of Nose Hill 
Mr. Dexter R. and Mr. Sinister L. Optick live on. 
When you know that, you'll probably be able to 
guess what their middle names are. 



<-«we5T 



EA5T)^-». 



DextejfR, 
Optick 
lives here 






Sinister L. 

Optick 
lives here 



Puck suddenly stopped talking, and seemed to be 
listening intently. Then he stood up on the twig and 
began to jounce it up and down, as a bather does 
the springboard before he dives. 

"I'm off!" cried Puck, teetering violently, "I'm 
the slave of Fairy Wonder Rings everywhere, you 
know, just like Aladdin's Genie of the Lamp. A 



SECOND REEL 19 

little boy in California has just walked into a Ring — 
and he's wondering why bees go into flowers — so 
he'll need me in a few minutes. See you in the 
Stump-Meadow after supper! I'm off!" cried Puck 
again — as his springboard twig threw him up into 
the air. That was the last the children saw of him 
that afternoon. 



THIRD REEL 

WHY THE PRINCESS ISTAR LOSES AND GAINS HER 
JEWELLED ROBES — AND MORE ABOUT THE OPTICK 
BROTHERS AND WHAT THEY LEARNED OF LUNA MOON 

The children, and Betty particularly, could hardly 
wait until evening to tell Puck the answer to the 
riddle of Luna Moon's bow. 

''I bet that he knows a'ready that we guessed it 
all by ourselves," said Paul, as the three walked 
across the Stump Meadow toward the Fairy Ring 
after supper. ''I sort of felt him around when I 
was drawing the arrows into Otto's first and last 
quarter bows." 

"Well," said Peter, ''he promised Betty to tell 
her anything she wanted to know 'bout Luna, if 
she could just answer the riddle to-night, so I 
guess it won't make any difference whether he knows 
we found out all by ourselves or not." 

"Otto helped," said Betty. "We shouldn't have 
guessed it if Otto hadn't helped." 

The Young Moon's crescent was shining clearly 
in the last of the sunset glow as the children ar- 
rived at the Wonder Ring. Luna was not quite so 
slender as on the previous evening, and her bent bow 
was seen higher in the sky as the glow faded. 

20 



THIRD REEL n 

"Last night," said Paul, "the lady's bow was 
right close to that bright evening star, and to-night 
the bow is away up above the star. I wonder why? " 

"I'll ask Puck," Betty promised him. 

Just then the children reached the Ring, Peter 
carrying the lantern, Betty 'Rags" white rubber 
ball, and Paul his own head. All were full of curi- 
osity as to what Mr. Puck could possibly want with 
these three objects. 

When the children were still outside the Fairy 
Ring they saw nothing of Puck in or out of it, but 
the moment they had crossed its magic edge there 
he was, sitting cross-legged on the mossy stump. 
His eyes were wide, like those of a sleepwalker, his 
lips were moving, and he stared dreamily at the 
moon. He seemed not to notice the arrival of the 
children and talked to himself, half aloud, in a 
strange language that they knew was neither French 
nor German. 

Now and then Puck spoke the word ''I star'' as 
if he loved its very sound, and when he did this he 
bowed his head down between his knees and stretched 
his arms out straight before him. 

Betty put her lips close to Paul's ear and whispered 

"He must be praying to the moon." 

Puck sat up straight and turned toward the 
children. He gazed at them steadily for a moment 
and the far-away look went out of his eyes. 

"Petrus," he finally said, "canst tell me what 
is the Taj Mahal?'' 

Paul hesitated. 



22 THE SKY MOVIES 

''I like the sound of it," he said, ''it sounds Kke 
some of the words in Mr. KipHng's stories of Mowgli, 
or Kim. It makes me see pictures of elephants 
with embroidered blankets, and howdahs on their 
backs." 

"Right thou art, Paulus," said Puck softly. "The 
Taj Mahal is the jewel of India; a building of frozen 
dreams, and music and moonshine. My spirit was 
but now sitting before it, making my obeisance to 
the daughter of the Moon Goddess — to Istar — 
beautiful Moon Princess." 

Puck's eyes became dreamy again. He sat quiet 
and seemed to have forgotten the children, and 
when he began to speak again it was half to himself : 

"When the world was young; when the world was 
small; when the Great Pyramid was yet an unborn 
dream — then was Istar great in India. She was 
great — and the fame of the shining, jewelled beauty 
of the Moon Goddess' daughter came even to the 
Underworld below the sunset — to the ears of the 
mighty God of the Dead. 

"And the Lord of that Underworld, living always 
in dim shade, made his demand that the daughter 
of the Moon Goddess visit his realm once every 
month — and since his power was great, it was so. 
Even to this day Istar must go to the Land of the 
Dead, once every month. 

"From the heights of the sky she starts — just 
after the full of the moon — and each day Istar 
passes through one of the gates of Day and Night, 
on her way to the Land of the Dead. 



THIRD REEL 23 

*'Each time she passes through one of the dim 
portals some part of her joyous, pearly robes is 
taken away by the Moon Goddess, her mother, and 
in its place a mourning veil of smoky dullness is 
draped about her form. 

"Day after day she passes the portals that lead 
to the Underworld, and day after day her bright 
dress grows less and her dull robes cover her more 
completely, for the Moon Goddess is determined 
that the Lord of the Dead shall never see Istars 
face and form in its beauty. 

"And so it comes to be that when I star passes the 
last portal, and enters the country of the shades, she 
is all in black from face to feet. 

"It is no marvel that the King of the Dark sees 
no beauty in her veiled face and form and soon gives 
her leave to start her return journey. 

"It is then that the Moon Goddess, her mother, 
begins to rejoice. From the Isles of the Blessed, 
where the Gods live, she runs singing to meet Istar, 
carrying with her the joyous, pearly robes of gauzy 
moonshine. 

"At the first portal of Day and Night she meets 
her child, in rapture takes away some part of the 
veils of gloom, and in its place clothes Istar's body 
in the garments of woven light. 

"At each portal that Istar passes through, her 
mother replaces with robes of light the heavy veils 
of her darkness, until once again Istar, the Moon 
Princess, mounts her throne in high-heaven — and 
frona radiant hair to white-shod feet she shines in 



24 THE SKY MOVIES 

the full, exquisite beauty that is the chief joy of the 
gods in Nirvana, the seventh heaven." 

The children were quiet for some time after Puck 
had finished the story of Istar. 

Then Betty said, 

"It's a lovely story. I wonder why it is that all 
the most beautiful stories aren't true." 

''But they are true," cried Puck, suddenly losing 
all his dreaminess. ''All the most beautiful stories 
are really true. That is why they are beautiful. 
When you really understand the truth of Ista/s 
story — the truth behind it — you will see that it 
can't help being true." 

"But how can we learn the truth behind it, Mr. 
Puck?" asked Peter. 

"How didst learn the truth about Luna Moon's 
bow and what she is ever aiming at.^" inquired 
Puck. 

"Why — it — it — just came to us, when we thought 
about the drawings Otto made in the dirt," answered 
Peter. 

"Right thou art!" said Puck. "The right answer 
always comes. Petrus has the lantern; the little 
lady the white ball; and Paulus his head. We will 
put them together — the right answer will come — and 
we shall know the truth of I star's beautiful story." 

"How do we start.^ Let's begin! That's dandy!" 
cried all the children at once. 

Puck stood up on the stump, pursed his puckery 
lips and gave a long, shrill whistle. Then he called 
loudly. 



THIRD REEL 



25 



"Dexter, oh Dexter Op tick! Ah, there thou art, 
in Paulus' head — and over Nose Hill I see thy 
brother Sinister Optick. We shall need you both 
to learn truth." 

Then, at Puck's direction, Peter held the lantern 
upon the crown of his head; and Paul walked around 
Peter in a circle, as the earth moves round the sun; 
and Betty held up the white ball at the level of 
Paul's head, while walking around him as the moon 
moves around the earth. 

The white ball in Betty's hand stood for the moon, 
and Paul's head stood for the earth, and the children 
looked like this in the gathering dusk. 




You see that the lantern lighted only one side of 
the ball and Paul's head, just as the sunlight brightens 
only one side of the moon and the earth. 



26 THE SKY MOVIES 

You see too how the Optick brothers, who Hve 
on opposite sides of Nose Hill, look out from the 
valleys of Paul's face, where they live, just as you 
do from your home on the earth. 

When Paul's head turns from his right to his 
left, just as the earth turns on its axis from West 
to East, the lantern, or sun, goes down behind Nose 
Hill, like this: 




The valley where Mr. Sinister L. Optick lives is 
already in shadow, but the setting sun still shines 
upon Mr. Dexter R. Optick's valley on the West 
side of Nose Hill. 



THIRD REEL 27 

K we could climb up a tree and look down on the 
top of Paul's head it would look like this — with the 
light from the setting sun-lantern shining on the 
West side of Nose Hill and Dexter Optick's home: 




And if the moon-ball is in the position shown in 
this picture, just in direct line with the sun, neither 
Dexter nor Sinister Optick, nor anyone else on the 
earth, can see a bit of the bright half of the moon- 
ball — the side that the sun-lantern lights up. Then 
we say that the moon is "new.'' 

"That's the time Grandpa calls 'the dark of the 
moon,' — the best time to plant things to make them 
grow, isn't it.^" asked Betty. 

"Yes," said Peter, "it's the 'dark of the moon' 
all right, but Grandma says it's the worst time to 
plant potatoes." 



28 THE SKY MOVIES 

Puck looked from Betty to Peter, turning his 
head with the quick movements of a squirrel. 
Then he pursed his lips, gave a long, low whistle 
and said, 

''What say the potatoes upon this weighty mat- 
ter?" 

None of the children had asked the potatoes. 

''But I have," Puck assured them, "I have had 
speech with the potatoes — and I got one word, and 
only one, from them as to what time of the moon 
was best for them to grow in. One and all, the 
potatoes answered with the same word, and it was, 
'Mumbo-Jumbo.'" 

The children all gave Puck puzzled looks. "Mum- 
bo-Jumbo" didn't sound like an answer to such a 
question at all. Finally Betty said, 

"Please, Mr. Puck, can't you — will you — trans- 
late what the potatoes said — explain it a little 
bit.^" 

"Certainly," said Puck soberly, "it means that 
they all stood up and began to wrestle, catch as 
catch can, until the little red button on the cap of 
the Grand Panjandrum himself burst with a loud 
roar — and the gunpowder ran out of the toes of 
their boots." 

"But, Mr. Puck," cried Betty, more puzzled than 
ever, " that's nothing but nonsense!" 

"Of course!" Puck agreed with a bored air, 
"that's just what the potatoes said, and they ought 
to know — they do the growing." 

"Come," he continued more brightly, "come 



THIRD REEL 29 

back into your positions again. We would wish to 
see with our eyes how Istar the Moon Princess looks, 
after her royal mother has met her at the first portal 
of Day and Night on her return from the Lord of 
the Dark." 

The children took the positions they had before 
(when we imagined a tree, and climbed up it, and 
looked down and saw the top of Paul's head), like 
this: 




As before, the moon-ball was directly in line 
with the sun-lantern and Paul's head, so that the 
Optick brothers could see only the moon-ball's dark 
side. 

Then Betty, at Puck's direction, carried the 
white ball a little way along the curve of its circle 
around Paul's head, as you see in this picture. 



30 



THE SKY MOVIES 




After it moved, both the Optick brothers could see 
a httle bit of the Hghted side of the ball; and when 
they saw that the lighted part, just coming into 
sight, was thin and curved like the crescent moon 
beginning its first quarter, they told Paul and he 
cried in great excitement, 

"Oh, Betty! I see now how Luna Moon gets her 
bow, and how it gets wider and wider, until the moon 
is full!" 

The picture you have just looked at shows how the 
moon-ball would have looked if you could have 
viewed it from above Paul's head, and the next 
picture shows how the Optick brothers saw it at 
the same time, from the valleys where they live. 

You see that it looks just the same as the moon 
does to you from your home on the earth at sunset 
time, when Luna Moon is a couple of days beyond 
her "new moon" position. 



THIRD REEL 



31 




"Ooo!" cried Betty impatiently, '*I want to have 
my Op tick brothers see too!" 

So Betty took Paul's place while Paul held the 
ball, and after that Peter had his turn. 

Then Puck had Betty keep on moving the moon- 
ball around Paul's head until the Optick brothers 
had seen it go through all its changes or "phases" — 
"new moon," "waxing crescent," "first quarter," 
"gibbous moon," "full moon," "gibbous moon" 
again, "last quarter," "waning crescent," and back 
to the "new" or "dark of the moon." 



3^ THE SKY MOVIES 

The moving-picture play on the following pages 
shows just how Paul's head and the moon-ball 
looked from above; how the moon-ball looked to 
the Optick brothers at each stage of its trip around 
Paul's head, from ''new" moon to ''full" moon, 
and back again to "new" moon; and how the real 
moon looks at each of its changes through a month. 

Next time you see Luna Moon's thin bow in the 
West, just after sunset, imagine you are Dexter or 
Sinister Optick, living beside Nose Hill on Paul's 
head, and imagine that you see the moon-ball, in 
the light of the sun-lantern. 

Then watch Luna Moon go through all her phases 
night after night for a month, still imagining that 
you are one of the Optick brothers looking at the 
moon-ball, and you will understand how the moon 
waxes and wanes just as well as Betty and her 
brothers understood it. 

After you have done that, you are sure to say, 
just as Betty did, 

'I'm terribly glad all the beautiful stories are 
true too!" 



34 



THE SKY MOVIES 



HOW TO EXHIBIT THIS "MOVIE" 

Hold the book in the hands as shown in the picture 
below. Then, as the pages under your right thumb 
are rapidly released, one by one, you will see: 

— ^how the moon waxes and wanes 

— how it goes around the earth every month 

— how the Optick Brothers see the moon's changes 

— and how ''Jack and Jill in the moon" go up the hill 

and down again. 

Run the movie through several times and have fun 
watching something different each time. 




JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 35 
See "Jack and Jill in the Moon?'' 




© The Knapp Co. 

Of course there is nobody who doesn't know the 
man up there — and 'most everybody can see the 
lady — but how many know how to see Jack and Jill 
in the moon? 

They are there — really they are — and these two 
little pictures will help you to see them. The first 
picture is a photograph taken by an astronomer at 
the great Yerkes observatory. Perhaps he didn't 
suspect that Jack and Jill were going to get into the 
picture too — but there they are. 





36 THE SKY MOVIES 

"Jack and Jill went up the hill, 
To get a pail of water; 
Jack fell down and broke his crown. 
And Jill came tumbling after." 

XJOW that you know how to see Jack and 
^^ Jill in the moon, you can actually watch 
them do all the things the nursery rhyme tells 
about. 

The sky is the ''hill/' and since the waxing 
moon is seen higher in the sky every night you 
can see how the moon children climb the hill of 
the sky too. 

Then, as the moon wanes, Jack's curving side 
or ''crown" of it gradually gets "broken" and 
dark and soon Jack himself has "fallen" out of 
sight. 

After that it isn't but two or three days until 
Jill has "tumbled after" him — and there is 
nothing left of the moon itself but a narrow 
crescent in the East before sunrise. 

How about the pail of water Jack and Jill 
went up the hill to get.^ 

Well, don't you often hear people say, 

"It w^ill rain when the moon changes" — 
or, "After the moon is full there will be a 
storm?" 

Of course, the rain doesn't always wait for 
Jack and Jill in the moon to tumble down and 
spill their pail-ful of it over us, but lots of 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 37 

people still believe that the moon controls the 
weather. 

The story of Jack and Jill is a very, very old 
one. The first time it was told it was meant for 
a description of the way the moon waxed and 
waned, and seemed to bring down the water 
from the sky. Now most people have forgotten 
the original meaning, and the story of Jack and 
Jill is just repeated as a jolly nursery rhyme. 

We say that Jack and Jill is a nature myth. 
That means a story that was made up in the 
beginning to describe something that keeps 
happening in Nature. The simple people of 
long ago explained the actions of the moon by 
telling about Jack and Jill. We explain them 
by understanding what really happens, as Puck 
and the children did in the ''reel" of this book 
that you have just read. 



38 THE SKY MOVIES 



WAXING CRESCENT 

(Photograph by Mr. R, J. Wallace) 

Optick Brothers see narrow 
crescent in West at sunset. 



Moon's Age: 3H days. 



Jack and Jill cannot 
be seen yet. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 39 




40 THE SKY MOVIES 



WAXING CRESCENT 

Opticks see a wider 
bow, higher in the 
West at sunset. 



Moon's Age: 5K days. 



Jack's feet begin to 
appear in center of 
crescent. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 41 





42 THE SKY MOVIES 



FIRST QUARTER 

{Photograph by Mr. R. J. Wallace) 

Opticks see the moon 
half-full in Southern 
sky at sunset. 



Moon's Age: 6M days. 



All of Jack's legs and 
part of his body can 
now be seen, and he 
has gone a long way 
up the "hill" (the 
sky). 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 43 






44 THE SKY MOVIES 



FIRST QUARTER 

Opticks see the moon 
a little farther toward 
the East at sunset. 



Moon's Age: 7/4 days. 



All of Jack's legs and 
body are now visible, 
and his head is coming 
into sight. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 45 






46 THE SKY MOVIES 



GIBBOUS * MOON 

{Photograph by Mr. G. W. Ritchey) 

Opticks see the moon 
more than half full far- 
ther toward the East 
at sunset. 



Moon's Age: 9^ days. 



All of Jack, including 
his head, can now be 
seen. His right arm 
holds on to the pail 
in the center of the 
moon. 

* " Gibbous " means having the bright 
part greater than a semi-circle or less 
than a full circle. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 47 






48 THE SKY MOVIES 



GIBBOUS MOON 

{Photograph by Mr. R. J. Wallace) 

Opticks see the moon 
still farther toward the 
East at sunset time. 



Moon's Age: 11^ days. 



All of Jack is now in 
sight and nearly all of 
Jill, with the pail held 
between them. Jill 
takes more imagina- 
tion to see than Jack 
does. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 49 






50 THE SKY MOVIES 



FULL MOON 

{Photograph by Mr. F. Slocum) 

Opticks see the full 
moon rise in the East 
at the same time that 
the sun is setting in 
the West. 



Moon's Age: 143^ days 



All of Jack and Jill are 
now in sight. They 
have climbed the hill 
of the sky as far as 
they can get away 
from the sun. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 51 






52 THE SKY MOVIES 



GIBBOUS MOON 

(Photograph by Mr. G. W. Ritchey) 

Opticks see the moon 
rise in the East after 
the sun has set. 



Moon's Age: 18 days 



Jack's curve or "crown" 
of the moon is badly 
"broken," and he is be- 
ginning to "fall down" 
out of sight. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 53 






54 THE SKY MOVIES 



GIBBOUS MOON 

{Photograph by Mr. G. W. Ritchey) 

Opticks see the moon 
rise later in the even- 
ing. 



Moon's Age: 20 days 



Jack is nearly all gone 
except his head. Jill 
is getting ready to 
''tumble after" him. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 55 






56 THE SKY MOVIES 



LAST QUARTER 

{Photograph by Mr. G. W. Ritchey) 

Opticks see the moon 
rise still later at night. 



Moon's Age: 203^ days. 



Jill is just beginning 
to go "tumbling" 
after Jack down the 
hill of the sky. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 57 






58 THE SKY MOVIES 



WANING CRESCENT 

{Photograph by Mr. R. J. Wallace) 

Opticks see the moon 
rise very late in night 
and see it in the sky 
after sun-rise next 
morning. 



Moon's Age: 24 days. 



Jill is about all gone 
too. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 



59 






60 THE SKY MOVIES 



WANING CRESCENT 

Opticks see the moon 
rise only a little while 
before the sun does, 
and see it in the sky 
in the day time. 



Moon's Age: 2478 days. 



Jack and Jill have 
now both tumbled 
down the sky. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 61 






62 THE SKY MOVIES 



WANING CRESCENT 

{Photograph by Mr. R. J. Wallace) 

Opticks see the thin 
moon bow in the sky 
at dawn, while the 
sun is rising. 



Moon's Age: 27 days 



Jack and Jill are now 
getting ready to climb 
the hill of the sky 
again, after the time 
called "new moon," 
when the dark side is 
turned toward us, and 
nobody can see even a 
thin bow of light. 



JACK AND JILL IN THE MOON 63 






64 THE SKY MOVIES 

NOW LET US THANK THE ASTRONOMERS 
AND EVERYBODY ELSE WHO HELPED US 

The wonderful pictures of the moon that you 
have just seen in our "Sky Movie" theater were 
shown by special permission of the Yerkes Observa- 
tory, and by arrangement with D. Appleton and 
Company, who used them in Mr. Garrett Serviss' 
book called, "The Moon." 

Some of these photographs were taken with a 
twelve-inch telescope at the Yerkes Observatory, 
and some of them with the largest refracting tele- 
scope in the world, which is also there. There is a 
picture of this big Yerkes telescope on page 121. 

We also wish to thank the director of this observa- 
tory for permission to show you the photographs of 
Venus, Mars and Saturn. 

The fairy ring picture is used in our book by per- 
mission of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 

The picture of Jack and Jill, by Clara L. Burd, 
is printed by the courtesy of the Knapp Company. 

The author is also indebted to the following books 
for facts, ideas and suggestions: 

Todd : New Astronomy 

Jacoby: Astronomy 

Snyder: The World Machine 

Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers 



FOURTH REEL 

IN WHICH THE CHILDREN LEARN HOW TO SEE 
THOUGHTS — JUST LIKE PICTURES — AND HOW MON- 
SIEUR FOUCAULT PROVED THAT THE WORLD SPINS 
LIKE A TOP 

When the children had arrived at Grandfather's 
house from the Fairy Ring, after Mr. Puck had 
helped them to know the truth about Istar, the 
Moon Princess, they had a pleasant surprise. 

Just as they had come into the barnj^ard with 
their lighted lantern. Grandfather had driven in, 
riding in his buggy, with "Molly" pulling it; and 
sitting beside Grandfather was Uncle Henry! 

They could hardly wait for him to get out and 
get into the house, and see Grandmother, before 
they carried him off to the front porch and told 
him all about Puck and I star, the Moon Princess. 

Uncle Henry was very glad indeed to hear all 
about it, as they knew he would be, and he said, 

"I was sure you'd get into a Wonder Ring, and I 
knew that just as soon as you did you'd find out 
some wonderful things and have lots of fun." 

"Yes," said Betty, "and it was such fun! Puck 
is so cunning I can hardly bear to see him go when 
he disappears; he would make such a wonderful doll!" 

65 



66 THE SKY MOVIES 

Uncle Henry laughed. 

''If you had Puck for a doll," he said, ''he would 
be kept in a drawer and you'd always know just 
where he was — but now you never know just when 
or where he is going to appear. You just know 
he'll turn up and bring the right answer if you 
wonder and think enough, and that he'll appear 
when you least expect it. That makes him lots 
more interesting, doesn't it.^" 

The children all agreed that it did. 

Then Peter said, 

"Of course I know that it's true — because every- 
body says so, but how do people really know that 
our whole world turns clear around every day, the 
way the geography globe does on its iron axle- 
rod.^ 

"The whole sky seems to turn around us and move 
over us from East to West. How did people prove 
for sure that it's really the earth turning the other 
way that makes the stars and sun and moon rise 
and move across and set.^" 

"Let's try and find out to-morrow," said Uncle 
Henry. "We'll go out and stand in the Fairy Ring 
and wonder real hard — and maybe Puck will bring 
the answer to us." 

"All right," cried Betty, "let's!" 

The boys agreed, so Uncle Henry went in and to 
bed, for he was tired from his trip from the city. 

Next morning, however, the children carried him 
off to the Fairy Ring right after breakfast. Uncle 
Henry admired it very much — it was such a beau- 



FOURTH REEL 67 

tiful, big one! If you have never seen one yourself 
tHis will be a good time to show you how they look. 




68 THE SKY MOVIES 

Uncle Henry told the children that the little fairy 
umbrellas were not toadstools, as they thought, 
but mushrooms, so you may as well know too. 

This isn't a picture of the very same ring in which 
Puck first appeared to Peter and Paul and Betty, 
but it is one just about like it, and since Puck is the 
slave of every Wonder Ring in the world he probably 
appeared in this very one in the picture some time 
or other. 

Uncle Henry explained that Wonder Rings prob- 
ably start from just a few mushrooms, perhaps only 
one. The seeds of the mushroom get scattered in 
a circle around it, and next year a circle of grown- 
up mushrooms appear. Then these in their turn 
scatter seeds over a wider circle, and these make 
grown-up mushrooms the next year, and so on. 

Some Fairy Rings are supposed to be five or 
six hundred years old, so Puck must have been 
called to bring answers to them a great many 
times. 

Uncle Henry and the children stepped into the 
Ring and wondered and wondered about how we 
can be sure that the earth really turns around, but 
nothing happened. Puck didn't appear at all. 

Betty said, 

"Maybe he's off in California again showing that 
boy some more about the bees and the flowers." 

Uncle Henry thought not. 

"Let's walk back to the barn," he said, "I have 
an idea that maybe we'll find him there." 

When the children and their Uncle came back 



FOURTH REEL 



69 



to the barn Uncle Henry said he felt sure that Puck 
must be hiding somewhere about, so the children 
started looking for him. 

Betty turned over a rusty old tin pail that was 
upside down on the floor, but Puck wasn't under it. 
Paul looked under the seat of the buggy, but all he 
found was a coil of thin, smooth fence wire that 
Grandfather had brought from town the day before. 

Just then all the children heard Puck's chattering, 
bubbling laugh — just the way they had heard it the 
first day they had seen the little green man on the 
stump. The laugh seemed to come from high over 
their heads, away up among the dim cobwebs under 
the roof. 

When they all looked up they could see nothing 
at first, the light was so dim, but when their eyes 
got used to it they saw Puck sitting on a big beam 
that crossed the barn from side to side a few feet 
below the roof. 




He looked down and said cheerily, 
"Hello, Petrus and Paulus! Hello, little lady! 
Hello, Old One!" Uncle Henry was only twenty- 



70 THE SKY MOVIES 

five, but that is rather old after all, and he didn't 
seem to mind being called ''Old One" at all, so 
Puck never called Uncle Henry anything else after 
that. 

"I'm sending down a spider on his own spider 
thread," Puck continued, ''he'll be down in a 
minute. When he gets there, give the spider the 
end of a spool of cotton thread and he'll haul it 
back up here to me." 

Betty rushed off to the house, and was back in a 
minute or two, after making a swift raid on Grand- 
ma's work-basket. By that time the spider had 
let himself down, all the way from the beam, on a 
tiny, silken cord of his own spinning. 

You have seen spiders do this lots of times, and 
haul themselves back up to where they came down 
from afterwards too. 

Well, when the spider was down within reach 
Uncle Henry unwound a lot of the fine cotton thread 
from Grandma's spool and gave the end of it to the 
spider, and back the clever insect went with it, 
climbing his own silken cord, up to Puck on the 
beam above. 

Then, when Puck had taken the end of the cotton 
thread from the obliging spider, he braced his feet 
and got ready to pull hard, while Uncle Henry took 
Grandpa's coil of smooth wire out of the buggy box, 
made a wire loop in one end of it, and tied the 
thread onto it. Then Puck hauled and hauled on 
the thread, and up and up went the wire until the 
end of it was in Puck's hands. 



FOURTH REEL 71 

It was only the work of a minute for him to wind 
the wire tightly around the beam and twist and tie 
its end firmly in place — and then Puck came sliding 
down the wire to the children on the barn floor. 

Peter and Paul and Betty were thoroughly mysti- 
fied now, and Peter said, 

''^ATiat has all this got to do with the world 
turning round every day. Uncle Hen?" 

"You'll see pretty soon, Pete," said Uncle Henry 
reassuringly. He was looking closely at the rusty 
old water pail and now he brought it over to the 
centre of the barn floor, where the wire hung down 
from the beam above. 

''That's why Grandma threw it away," said 
Betty, putting her little finger through the hole in 
the middle of the pail's bottom. 

"We can soon fix that," smiled Uncle Henry, 
"Pete, just step out and cut a strong, straight 
twig from one of the apple trees." 

Peter ran to do it, and when he had brought a 
twig about a foot long Uncle Henry forced the cut 
end of the twig into the hole and made the pail so 
that it wouldn't leak. But instead of cutting off 
the end of the green stick below the pail's bottom. 
Uncle Henry left it sticking straight down. 

The children's eyes were now^ popping out with 
curiosity and they opened wider still when Uncle 
Henry fastened the handle of the pail to the wire 
hanging from the beam and adjusted it so that the 
leaf at the end of the twig just brushed the boards 
of the barn floor, like this; 



72 



THE SKY MOVIES 




"Now, Paul," commanded Uncle Henry, "y^^ 
and Pete bring a few shovelsful of moist earth from 
the garden and pack the pail with it until the dirt 
is level with its top." 

The boys did this quickly, with Puck dancing im- 
patiently around the hanging pail. The moment the 
earth was smoothed off level with the top Puck gave 
a leap and landed on the soil and pebbles in the pail. 

Then it looked like this as it hung from the beam 
about forty feet above. 




FOURTH REEL 



73 



"Now," said Uncle Henry, ''we'll rummage in 
the tool chest a minute and then go ahead. I want 
father's plumb-bob." 

He found it after a search of a minute or two in 
the tool chest behind Molly's stall, tied a piece of 
string to the bob and to a foot rule, and handed it 
to Paul, who looked like this, as he held the rule 
in both hands. 




•74 



THE SKY MOVIES 



'*Now," said Uncle Henry, "I'm going to start 
the heavy plumb-bob swinging back and forth at 
right angles to the ruler. Then Paul will quickly 
turn the ruler so that it points straight out away 
from his hips instead of being parallel to them as it 
is now. Then all of you watch the plumb -bob and 
see what it does." 

The bob was set swinging like the pendulum of a 
clock. It swung back between Paul's feet and then 
straight out away from him — back and forth — back 
and forth. Then Paul suddenly turned his hands 
so that they were in this position. 




FOURTH REEL 



75 



The ruler was now just at right angles to the 
position it was in before. 

The children watched the plumb-bob closely. 

''It isn't doing anything different! ''cried Betty, 
"it just keeps on swinging back and forth between 
Paul's legs." 

"No," said Uncle Henry, "the pendulum will 
keep on swinging in just the same direction it started, 
no matter how we turn the ruler it is hung from. 

"Now suppose that we started the pail of dirt 
swinging on the wire that hangs from the roof beam 
up there, and then suppose that Paul was an im- 
mense giant, and could pick up this whole barn and 
suddenly turn it a quarter of the way round and set 
it down again." 

The children did their best to suppose that Paul 
was a giant big enough to do it. These were the 
pictures they saw in their imaginations: 





76 THE SKY MOVIES 

"Now," said Uncle Henry, "what would the 
swinging pail of dirt do while Giant Paul picked up 
the barn and turned it round?" 

The children thought a moment and then Peter 
said, 

"I suppose it would keep on swinging in the same 
direction it started in — just like the plumb bob 
does." 

"Well then," Uncle Henry continued, "if the 
pail was swinging lengthways of the barn, along the 
line of the cracks between the floor boards, how 
would it be swinging after Giant Paul had turned 
the whole barn, floor and all, through a quarter of 
the circle?" 

"Why," said Paul, "I would be turning the whole 
barn of course, floor, roof, and all, so — so I guess the 
pail would swing crossways of the barn after I had 
turned it." 

"That's right," smiled Uncle Henry. "We're 
getting on famously. The pail would be swinging 
across the cracks between the floor boards after you 
had turned the whole barn a quarter of the way 
round. Do you all see that?" 

The children thought a minute and succeeded in 
imagining that it would be so. These two pictures 
show how the pendulum would keep on swinging 
in the same direction all the time, and you can see 
that after Paul, the Giant, had turned the barn, the 
pendulum would be going across the cracks of the 
floor instead of parallel to them. 



FOURTH REEL 



77 





"Do you think," asked Uncle Henry, smiling, 
''that you could imagine something else now — 
something that is a little harder?" 

"We'll try anything once," said Peter, speaking 
for the crowd, and the others said, "Sure!" 

The children and Uncle Henry had not been 
paying any attention to Puck, but now he suddenly 
interrupted. 

"Think! Old One!" he cried from a dark corner 
of the barn behind the feed box. "Think hard of 
the picture you would make Petrus and Paulus 
and the little lady to see — and then look upon the 
web." 

Then the children saw that Puck was standing 
upon the feed box, pointing to a great circular spider's 
web filling the entire corner of the walls behind him. 

Uncle Henry must have started to think hard at 
once, for suddenly a picture began to appear on the 
screen of cobwebs in the corner behind Puck, just 
exactly as if it was being thrown there by a moving- 
picture machine. 



78 THE SKY MOVIES 

First the top of a great globe appeared, turning 
slowly around. It was covered with ice and snow, 
so the children knew at once that it must be a pic- 
ture of the arctic regions at the north pole of the 
world. 

Then the children were startled to see Grandpa's 
barn appear in the picture. It appeared to be 
standing on the ice exactly over the end of the 
axis the great globe was slowly turning around 
upon. 

The picture on the cobweb screen now looked 
like this: 




After the globe had turned once completely 
around with the barn turning with it, the walls of 



FOURTH REEL 



79 



the barn in the moving picture became trans- 
parent, like glass, and through them the children 
and Uncle Henry saw the heavy pail of earth 
swinging back and forth from the beam in the 
roof. 

First it was swinging lengthways of the barn like 
this: 




"^^WlW 



Then, as the great globe turned the barn round 
just opposite to the way the clock hands turn, while 
the pail kept on swinging in the same direction all 
the time, the children soon saw that the swings were 
from side to side of the barn floor, instead of from 
end to end of it, like this: 



80 



THE SKY MOVIES 




After the globe had turned another quarter of the 
way round, the pail again swung lengthways of the 
barn floor, but the front of the barn, with its big 
doors, now faced away from the children and Uncle 
Henry, like this; 



"'^''^'^^^P^ 
^%^''^" 




FOURTH REEL 



81 



Another quarter turn of the globe showed the 
pail once more swinging crossways of the barn floor: 




And finally, after the globe had made one com- 
plete revolution, turning the barn entirely around 
with it, the pendulum was again swinging length- 
ways of the barn floor, with the barn doors facing 
the children, just as the moving picture was when it 
started, like this: 




82 



THE SKY MOVIES 



''Thou art a good thinker, Old One!" cried Puck 
to Uncle Henry as the picture on the spider web 
faded slowly out. ''Now think hard once more — 
until a new picture moves upon the spider's silvery 
web — the picture thou and I know of!" 

Almost at once the new picture Uncle Henry had 
in his mind began to be visible on the spider's web, 
and, as before. Grandfather's barn appeared upon 
a great, slowly-turning globe — but this time the 
barn was seen, not at the ice-bound pole, but at the 
hot, tropical equator, like this: 




The heavy pail of earth was swinging in a North 
and South direction, just at right angles to the 
equator of the globe; and as the globe slowly turned 



FOURTH REEL 83 

the children watched to see the pendulum swing 
crossways of the barn floor, as it had before, but 
nothing of the sort happened. Even when the globe 
had turned half way round, the pail was still swinging 
North and South, lengthways of the barn floor, 
like this: 



'^•W* *■ i^i'fiH^-^'^^ 




"Oh, I see!" cried Peter, "the pendulum doesn't 
swing crossways, and stays swinging lengthways, 
because at the equator the barn doesn't turn around 
in space. It's different when the barn is at the pole." 

"Right," said Uncle Henry. "Now we, here in 
this real barn, are located somewhere between the 
equator and the pole of the real earth — about half- 
way between. It happens that father built this 



84 THE SKY MOVIES 

barn so that the long way of the floor is almost ex- 
actly North and South. You can tell that by look- 
ing at the weather vane on the cupola. If we should 
set the heavy pail of earth swinging exactly North 
and South, what would happen to it while the world 
revolves from West to East.^" 

''Oh/' exclaimed Betty suddenly, "now I see 
what the apple twig sticking down from the bottom 
of the pail is for!" 

"Do you?" said Uncle Henry smilingly. "What 
is it for, Betty?" 

"Why, I'm sure I see it, in my mind you know, 
but I don't know whether I can tell it or not." 

*^Try anyway," Uncle Henry encouraged her. 

"Well," began Betty, "if we start the pail swing- 
ing, it's going to keep on in the same direction of 
course, just the w^ay it did in the picture when we 
saw the barn at the north pole. 

"But while the pail really and truly keeps on 
swinging in the same direction it started in, it will 
really and truly change the direction of its swinging 
on the barn floor too — and — and — well I guess I 
can't go any farther after all," Betty finished in dis- 
appointment. 

''Think the picture, little lady!" Puck suddenly 
piped up from the feed box, where he had all this 
time been practicing at walking on his hands. 

"Think of what you want to make them see, and 
all can then see it on the spider's movie screen." 

Betty began at once to think of the picture she had 
had clearly in her mind, but hadn't been able to find 



FOURTH REEL 



85 



the right words to draw, and presto-bright away the 
globe appeared again on the spider web ! 

It was turning slowly round on its axis as before, 
but the children and Uncle Henry seemed to be look- 
ing down on the globe from above its north pole. 
After the globe had turned completely round once, 
Grandpa's barn appeared upon it, about halfway be- 
tween the icy pole and the hot tropical equator — 
just where Uncle Henry had said it was in reality. 
The barn was placed with the long way of the floor 
North and South too. Then, as before, the sides be- 
came like glass and the children could see the pendu- 
lum-pail swinging North and South, back and forth, 
North and South, like this: 




86 



THE SKY MOVIES 



But, as the globe turned, the leafy twig below the 
bottom of the pail stopped gliding back and forth ex- 
actly along the cracks in the floor boards of the barn 
floor. 

As the pail continued to swing, the twig began to 
brush diagonally across the cracks in the floor — and 
then, when the globe had turned a part of the way 
round, the pail was swinging crossways of the barn, 
like this: 




And as the globe continued to turn, the pendulum- 
pail was soon again swinging lengthways of the barn 
floor, like this : 



FOURTH REEL 



87 




When the children had watched the globe go 
through another part of its turn they saw that the 
pail was again swinging crossways of the floor and 
when the barn had been carried still farther around, 
the pendulum was returning to the same North and 
South direction in which it started. 

"Do you mean to tell me/' cried Peter in sudden 
astonishment, "that if we start our old pail of dirt 
here to swinging North and South, or lengthways of 
this barn floor, that in a few hours it would be wag- 
ging crossways ? ' ' 

"It certainly would," said Uncle Henry, "the only 
diflSculty in the way of our trying it is that the pail 
wouldn't keep oil swinging that long. It would swing 



88 THE SKY MOVIES 

for half an hour or so, but our pail of dirt with its twig 
is so clumsy that I'm afraid we wouldn't be very suc- 
cessful in seeing the small amount that the barn would 
turn in that time. If we had a better pendulum, w^ith 
an accurate metal pointer in the bottom instead of 
our leafy twig, and if it was hung in a room quite free 
from drafts of air, we could really try it and could 
measure the amount the world turns in half an hour." 

"\Mio found out all about this.^ Did you, Uncle 
Henry .^ " asked Betty. 

''I wish I had," said Uncle Henry, "for I would 
now be as famous as Monsieur Foucault, who did it 
the first time with a heavy pendulum hung from the 
roof of the Pantheon in Paris. That was over sev- 
enty years ago, and since then ''Foucault's experi- 
ment" has been repeated numberless times in all 
parts of the world. The closer the place where it is 
tried is to the equator, the smaller the amount the 
pendulum turns in half an hour. The nearer to the 
pole the experiment is tried the faster the swinging 
weight turns away from the North and South line 
where it is started. At the North Pole, as we have 
seen, the pendulum turns completely around in 
twenty-four hours, but the farther away from the 
pole it is hung, the more slowly it turns until, at the 
equator, the pendulum never leaves the North and 
South line at all. It always works just the same, 
wherever it is tried, and it is the actual proof that the 
earth turns on its axis from West to East once every 
day." 

"Tell me, Mr. Puck," said Betty to the little green 



FOURTH REEL 89 

man, who still sat cross-legged on the dirt in the pail, 
''did Monsieur Foucault discover his experiment in 
a Fairy Ring in France?" 

"Yes," said Puck, ''and I told him there just how 
far the pendulum would turn on the circle on the 
Pantheon floor in an hour — before he even tried the 
experiment at all." 

The children looked at Puck quite open-mouthed 
with wonder. He rose, leaped upward, grasped the 
wire, and quickly went up it hand over hand to the 
beam overhead. Then in a moment the pail of dirt 
fell to the barn floor with a thud and the wire came 
rattling down after it. 

Puck had vanished and Uncle Henry and the chil- 
dren decided to adjourn and go flshing in the creek 
for the rest of the day. "Foucault's experiment" is 
wonderful enough to think about for a whole day. 
See if you don't think so. 



FIFTH REEL 

IN WHICH UNCLE HENRY MAKES A FUNNY KIND OF 

SUN-DIAL THE CHILDREN LEARN TO TELL TIME 

BY THE BIG DIPPER AND PAUl's CAMERA PROVES 

AGAIN THAT THE WORLD TURNS ROUND EVERY DAY 

The next morning Betty was out in Grandmother's 
old-fashioned garden picking some ''bleeding heart" 
and pretty blue ''bachelor's buttons" for the vases in 
the house, and while she was there Peter and Paul 
raced in from the barn with "Rags" in tow. They 
stopped to look at the sundial that stood on the 
cement post that Uncle Henry had built for the dial, 
after he brought it a year or two before as a present 
to Grandma. It was a beautiful, old, brass sundial 
that Uncle Henry had found in an antique shop in 
New York. Around the figures in the circle were 
these words in quaint old letters: 

"VAmor che muove il Sol e Valtre Stelle^^ 

Peter and Paul leaned their elbows on the edges 
of the dial and saw that the shadow said "nine 
o'clock." Then they pronounced the words as well 
as they could and wondered what they meant. 

Talking about the pendulum in the barn the day 

90 



FIFTH REEL 91 

before had made them more curious about teUing 
time, you see. 

Peter glanced over toward the porch of the house 
and could see Uncle Henry reading a book in the 
hammock. 

"Uncle Hen!" he called. 

Uncle Henry sat up and looked out into the 
sunlit garden. 'It must have looked inviting to 
him, with the three children and their dog around 
the sundial among the sunflowers and marigolds and 
verbenas, for he closed his book right away and 
came over to them. 

"What is it, Pete.^" he asked. 

"What do these words mean.^" Peter inquired. 

"Yes, and what makes the sundial tell what 
time it is.^" asked Betty, who now had picked all 
the flowers Grandma needed and taken them into 
the house. 

"And please tell me," said Paul, "how I can take 
a real good picture of the moon with my Kodak. 
I tried it 'fore you came last month and there 
wasn't anything but a white streak in the pic- 
ture when it was printed — and it ought to have 
been better, 'cause I exposed the picture for ten 
minutes." 

Uncle Henry laughed. 

"I'll begin with the first question first," he said, 
"because it is the easiest one to answer. 

"The words on the sundial are Italian and they 
mean, 

'The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.' " 



92 THE SKY MOVIES 

The children were quiet a moment before Betty 
said, 

''I Hke that. It's beautiful — like poetry — and 
some of Mamma's songs — like, 'The night has a 
thousand eyes.'" 

''But is the sun a star.^" inquired Paul. 

"Yes," Uncle Henry assured him, "it is just the 
same kind of a star as those you see at night, except 
that we are much nearer to the sun, so it looks very 
much brighter. Some of the far-away stars are 
much bigger suns than ours." 

"Well," said Paul, "it's a good thing we are near 
to the sun, 'cause if we weren't, this sundial wouldn't 
work at all, and I like to watch the shadow creep. 
You can almost see it move. Why does it tell time, 
Uncle Hen.^" 

"Well," said Uncle Henry, "I move that we go out 
into the Fairy Ring and wonder about it. Perhaps 
if we think hard enough Puck will come and help 
us to find out all about telling time." 

"That'll be great," said Peter. 

"It might be a good plan to take your Scout's 
compass, a wooden barrel or cheese-box hoop, about 
a yard of lath, a hammer and some little nails, and 
plenty of strong string along," suggested Uncle 
Henry. "They might help us to think better. Oh, 
yes, and we'll have to borrow Rags' white rubber 
ball from him too." 

Peter went to hunt lath, nails, hammer, and 
string; Paul went to find an old barrel hoop; and 
Betty started in search of Rags' ball. They were 



FIFTH REEL 93 

all to meet in the Stump Meadow by the Fairy Ring 
in fifteen minutes. 

When Uncle Henry found the children there he 
had also one of his big pads of drawing paper with 
him, and a mysterious little, flat black box. 

Uncle Henry sat on Puck's stump and the children 
sat around him on the grass inside the mushroom ring. 

''Pete," said Uncle Henry, ''have you got your 
jackknife with you?" 

"Sure!" said Peter. 

"All right. Cut this wooden hoop into two half 
circles," commanded his Uncle. 

WTien the hoop was cut, Uncle Henry showed 
Peter how to cross the two half hoops at right 
angles and tie them with heavy cord at the middle. 
Then he tied the cut ends of one of the half hoops 
together with a heavy cord, as if it was a bow, and 
the two hoops looked like this: 




"You remember," said Uncle Henry, "that the 
globe you have in the playroom at home turns round 
on its axis, just as the earth does?" 



94 



THE SKY MOVIES 



The children remembered very well indeed. 

Uncle Henry then opened the fascinating little 
black box he had brought. It proved to contain a 
set of drawing instruments — compasses and every- 
thing. 

In a moment the compasses had made a circle 
on the drawing pad and Uncle Henry had drawn a 
verticle line through the centre of the circle. 

Then he drew another line through its center. 
This was at right angles to the first line, and the two 
divided the circle into quarters, like this: 




Uncle Henry then divided each quarter into 
thirds and each third into smaller thirds. After 
the figure 90 was written at each end of one of the 
lines and at each end of the other, the circle looked 
like this: 



9o- 





^ 


PO 


L£^ 


^ 




t 


r 






% 


1 -^ 


i 




BQUA 


TOfi 




j 


k 


V 






^ 


730' 



90' 



FIFTH REEL 



95 



"Every circle," said Uncle Henry, ''is divided into 
four quarters, and each quarter into ninety small, 
equal parts or 'degrees.' Four times ninety is three 
hundred and sixty degrees for each complete circle. 

"Now if the earth stood up and spun around the 
sun with its axis parallel to the sun's axis (for the 
sun revolves like a top too) it would be like this: 



Q EARTH 




"But instead of doing that the earth's axis slants 
twenty-three and one half degrees away from the 
vertical, like this:" 



(£) EARTH 

/ 




This shows how much twenty-three and one half 
degrees is. 

99 




THE SKY MOVIES 



''This slant of the earth's axis away from the line of 
the sun's is the cause of our having warm Summers 
and cold Winters. We'll find out about that some 
other time. Just now we want to find out what 
makes the sun-dial tell time." 

Uncle Henry then drew the quarter circle that 
lies between the equator and the pole of the earth 
larger, and at intervals of twenty degrees along the 
curve his compasses drew small half circles with 
straight lines joining the ends of the bows. These 
short lines were all parallel with the long line repre- 
senting the axis of the earth. This was how the 
drawing looked: 




FIFTH REEL 



97 



"We found out yesterday," continued Uncle 
Henry, ''that here on your Grandpa's farm we are 
about half the distance between the earth's equator 
and pole. To be exact we are just four-ninths of 
the way, or just forty of the ninety degrees away 
from the equator. Astronomers w^ould say that our 
farm is at 'forty degrees north latitude.' Now, 
Paul, show us how we ought to place our barrel- 
hoop sundial on Mr. Puck's stump here, so that the 
stretched bow cord will be parallel with the earth's 



axis. 



Uncle Henry got up from the stump and 
handed the barrel hoops, tied together, to the 
little boy. 

Paul looked carefully at the drawing of the little 
circular bow at the point in the big quarter circle 
where the figure 40 was placed, and put the barrel 
hoop on the stump so that the stretched cord made 
the same angle with the ground as the line repre- 
senting the cord did with the curve of the earth in 
the picture. 

These next two pictures show how the angle ABC 
is the same as the angle DEF: 




THE SKY MOVIES 




"If we lived at sixty degrees north latitude in- 
stead of here," said Paul, "the line of the cord 
would tip up more, wouldn't it?" 

"Yes, and that reminds me of something else," 
said Uncle Henry. "I can show you with the com- 
passes more quickly than I can explain it." 

The little compasses started to work once more 
and Uncle Henry showed, with the aid of parts of 
dotted circles added to the large picture of the 
quarter circle, that the number of degrees in the 



FIFTH REEL 



99 



angle the cord made with the ground was always 
the same as the number of degrees of latitude of the 
place. This shows it better than words: 



I 



*:s 







^A-^i)s^'. 




When the children all understood that the cord of 
the bow in the barrel-hoop sundial must always be 
parallel to the axis of the earth, Uncle Henry said, 

'^Now we must do just one more thing before our 
sundial will be ready to tell time. Paul, bring the 
Scout's compass and lay it on the stump so we 
can see where the North is," 



100 



THE SKY MOVIES 



Paul did J and Uncle Henry turned the bow of the 
hoop until the cord stretched upon it pointed in the 
same direction the magnetic needle did. Then, 
while Betty held the hoop motionless, Uncle Henry 
cut away the big quarter circle he had drawn on the 
paper until only a V-shaped piece was left. The 
angle at the point of it was an angle of just forty 
degrees, like this: 

While Betty held the barrel hoop in a 

North and South position, Paul now 

tipped it until the V-shaped piece 

of paper just fitted into the 

angle between the cord and 

the stump, like this: 





Then Peter nailed the barrel hoop firmly to the 



FIFTH REEL 



101 



stump and the dial was properly adjusted to tell 
time at the point on the earth's surface where 
Grandpa's farm is located — forty degrees north lati- 
tude. 

"If we come out here to-night," said Uncle Henry, 
"and sight along the cord, from the bottom end 
toward the top end of it, we shall find that we are 
looking straight at the north star, which is called 
Polaris because the polar axis of the earth points 
at it. 

"You see that Polaris is so far away that the 
thickness of the earth is nothing in comparison to 
the immense distance, so any line parallel to the 
earth's axis will also point to Polaris,^' 

By the time the children and Uncle Henry had 
their barrel-hoop sundial finished and adjusted Uncle 
Henry's watch said that it was noon. 

The shadow of the cord then fell across the middle 
of the "cross ways hoop" and along the inside of the 
"bow hoop," like this: 




102 



THE SKY MOVIES 



"Ooh!" cried Betty, ''now I see what the cross- 
ways hoop is for!" 

"What is it for? " asked Uncle Henry, smiling with 
pleasure, as he always did when the children dis- 
covered things for themselves. 

"Why, it's to catch the shadow in the morning and 
afternoon. The arm of the hoop toward the West 
catches the shadow of the cord in the morning, and 
the one toward the East catches it until sunset." 

"Quite right" agreed Uncle Henry, "and since 
you've discovered it, Betty, we'll let you take this 
piece of chalk and mark the hours on the inside 
curve of the 'cross ways hoop.'" 

Uncle Henry had produced a piece of white chalk 
from one of his always surprising pockets, and 
showed Betty how to divide off each arm of the 
"crossway hoop" into six equal parts or hours. 

This is the way the sundial looked a little later 
in the afternoon when the shadow of the cord crossed 
the East arm of the "crossways hoop" at about the 
three o'clock mark. 




FIFTH REEL 



103 



"Why," asked Paul, "is the sundial in Grandma's 
garden flat, while the one of ours is round?" 

"This one would be just the same as your Grand- 
ma's," said Uncle Henry, "if we cut off the arms 
and then took that triangle of paper we used to 
find the right slant of the cord, and fastened it 
upright under the cord," 

This picture shows these things, and also that the 
figures for the hours would have to be put in the flat 
top of the stump instead of on the arms of the hoop. 




By this time the children knew that it was dinner 
time without any assistance whatever from sundials 
of any kind, so the meeting adjourned, leaving the 
sundial on the stump to count the hours until the 
children should come back to it again. 



104 



THE SKY MOVIES 



Steadily and smoothly the earth turned from 
West to East, and just as steadily the shadow of 
the cord traveled along the inside curve of the 
Eastern arm of the dial, until the sun seemed to 
sink in the West and Luna Moon, now almost half 
full, appeared in the sky. 

During the afternoon Uncle Henry showed the 
children this picture of the largest sundial in the 
world. It was built in India by a powerful Rajah 
nearly two hundred years ago. The half circle 
where the shadow falls is one hundred feet in diameter 
and the slanting wall that casts the shadow is ninety 
feet high. The shadow moves in the curved surface 
at the rate of two and one half inches every minute. 




From Astronomy; A Popular Handbook, by Harold Jacoby, The Macmillan Company. 



FIFTH REEL 105 

It was quite dark when a little procession, headed 
by a young man with a barn lantern, left the farm- 
house and started for the Fairy Ring in the Stump 
Meadow. Paul carried a school slate and had chalk 
in his pocket. 

''Our sundial will be asleep now," said Betty. 

"Yes," said Peter, ''but it'll wake up the moment 
the sun comes up." 

"How would we be able to tell time at night. 
Uncle Hen," asked Paul, "if we didn't have any 
clocks or watches.^" 

"Just the same way people told it at night be- 
fore there were any clocks or watches," said Uncle 
Henry. 

"But how was that.^" persisted Paul. 

"By the big clock in the northern sky," said 
Uncle Henry. 

The children tried to see his face to find out if he 
was joking, and when they saw that he wasn't 
they looked up at the northern stars with puzzled 
expressions. 

By this time they had all arrived at the Fairy 
Ring and Betty cried, 

"Oh, I want to find Polaris, the north star, the 
way Uncle Henry said we could this morning." 

So the little girl lay down on the sod and looked 
upward and Northward along the line of the sun- 
dial's cord. 

"It really does do it!" she cried. 

"Does do what?" said Peter. 

"The cord really does point out the north star," 



106 THE SKY MOVIES 

cried Betty. ''I know it's the north star because 
the pointer stars in the big dipper show that it is/' 

''Yes, that's right," said Uncle Henry, ''and the 
north star is the place where the hands of the star 
clock are fastened on. It is the centre of the dial, 
that never moves, the point that all the other stars 
in the northern sky swing around in circles, once 
every twenty-four hours." 

"How do people know that.^^" asked Peter. 

"Well, one good way to know is to take a photo- 
graph of them doing it," said Uncle Henry. "Paul 
wanted to take another picture of the moon be- 
cause the last time he tried it he got only a black 
streak on the plate. That was a good picture instead 
of a bad one, for it told the story of the earth's 
turning on its axis. So now, instead of another 
picture of the moon, I propose that we point the 
Kodak at the north star and let it be telling its true 
story silently on the sensitive plate for an hour or 
so, while we talk about the great star clock up there, 
and learn to tell time the way the shepherds with 
their flocks did, centuries ago, before watches were 
ever even dreamt of." 

"Ooh, that'll be great!" exclaimed Betty. "Let's 
start the Kodak to work right away, and when we 
get back to the house Peter can develop the plate 
and see what the north star's story is." 

Uncle Henry focused the Kodak for a "distant 
view" and propped it up on the stump so that it 
pointed upward, parallel to the line of the cord on 
the sundial, like this: 



FIFTH REEL 



107 




Then he carefully opened the shutter for a time 
exposure and let the camera stand where it was. 

''Now we can forget the Kodak/' he said, ''it 
will keep right on doing its work, and will tell us all 
about it later on. Everybody find the big dipper 
now, and we'll soon be able to tell time by the stars 
at night, just the way we do with our sundial in the 
daytime." 

The children had all found the big dipper now and 
Betty said, 

"It's hanging down by the end of its handle, just 
as if it was on a nail." 

"Yes," said Uncle Henry, "the dipper is like 
that in the evening in Summer, and since it is now 
just about July first and about nine o'clock in the 
evening, the dipper is hanging down very straight 



108 THE SKY MOVIES 

from the end of its handle, with its bowl just at the 
left of the pole star." 

This shows how the children saw the big dipper, or 
great bear. 




I'hen Uncle Henry explained that the dipper was 
just on the opposite side of the pole star in the 
Winter, on January 1st at nine P. M., but standing 
on its handle like this: 




FIFTH REEL 



109 



It's just as if some juggler was balancing the handle 
on his hand or on the end of his nose!" cried Paul. 

"Precisely," agreed Uncle Henry. 

"Now we'll see," he went on, "how the dipper 
looked in Spring, say on April first, at the same time 
in the evening." 

Here Uncle Henry took the slate from Paul, and 
drew, by the light of the lantern, both the Summer 
and Winter positions of the dipper, and after them 
the Spring and Autumn ones. In Spring it was 
upside down with the water all spilled out, like this: 




But in Autumn the dipper was standing solidly 
on the bottom with all the water safely held in it, 
like this : 



110 



THE SKY MOVIES 




"Oh/' cried Betty, "'I begin to see where the hands 
of the star clock are, but they tell months instead of 
hours." 

"That's fine!" said Uncle Henry enthusiastically, 
"show us with this pencil," and he handed the chalk 
and slate to the little girl. 

Betty then drew the dipper in each of its four 
positions, but she put all of them in one picture, 
like this: 




FIFTH REEL 



111 



''That's the clock's face," said Betty, ''but I 
don't know where to put the hour figures and the 
hands." 

"This clock has no minute hand," said Uncle 
Henry, "just an hour hand. As for the figures, we'll 
find out about them right away." 

Then Uncle Henry put the figure 9 just beside 
the dipper in its Summer position, and drew in a 
clock hand pointing to it. 




112 



THE SKY MOVIES 



"Now," said Uncle Henry, "our star clock is 
right; it says 'nine o'clock, July 1st.' Who can tell 
me where the hand will point at midnight to-night? 
Remember that our clock turns from right to left, 
just opposite to the way our ordinary clock or 
watch does." 

''Why is that. Uncle Hen.^" asked Peter. 
"You know if you stop and think a moment," 
said Uncle Henry. 

The children thought a minute or so and then 
Paul said, "I know." 

"Well then," said Uncle Henry, "tell us why." 
"I'll try," said Paul. "The right of the north 
pole star is East and the left if it is West, so if the 
clock hand turns from right to left it turns from 
East to West. But it only seems to turn because the 
earth is always turning from West to East, just the 
opposite way." 

"Very good, indeed," praised Uncle Henry, "now 

perhaps you can go 
on and tell us where 
the clock hand will 
point at midnight 
to-night. Draw it 
on the slate when 
you have made up 
your mind." 

Paul promptly 
drew the hand 
pointing straight 
downward, like this: 




FIFTH REEL 113 

"Your mistake is very natural/' said Uncle 
Henry. "Three hours on a watch dial is a quarter 
way round, but remember that the hands on a 
watch must travel twice round the dial every twenty- 
four hours. Remember too, that our star clock hand 
turns only once round in twenty -four hours. Then 
try again." 

Paul thought this over and then drew the position 
of the hand at midnight only half as far advanced 
beyond its nine o'clock position. 




"I see," cried Peter, "it goes a quarter way round 
every six hours, and four times six are twenty-four!" 

"Quite true,' smiled Uncle Henry, "so now you 
know how to tell time by the great star clock." 

The children had not thought it was quite as 
simple as that, so they weren't sure whether they 
knew how or not. 

"Try us some way and see if we know," said Paul. 



114 THE SKY MOVIES 

"All right," Uncle Henry agreed, "you already 
know the nine and twelve o'clock positions for this 
month, July. Now I'll draw the hand in another 
position and you see if you can tell the time of night 
it would be if you saw the dipper in the same position 
up there in the sky." 

"That'll be fine!" cried Betty, "it's a new game 
to play!" 

So Uncle Henry drew the dipper and imaginary 
clock hand in this position. 




"What time of night would it be if the dipper was 
like that, right under the pole?" asked Uncle Henry. 

After a little thought the children all agreed that 
it would be three o'clock in the morning, since the 
hand had moved a quarter of the way around the 
dial, and a quarter of twenty-four was six, and six 
hours after nine P. M. was three A. M. 

Then Betty said, "But, Uncle Henry, "the hand 



FIFTH REEL 115 

of the clock points the same way at three o'clock in 
July as it will at nine o'clock next October." 

Uncle Henry was pleased. 

'^That's fine, Betty," he said. ''You've discovered 
that the dipper is not only a clock, but a calendar as 
well. People in old times used the other stars and 
the dipper as their only calendar. 

"Before clocks and watches made them forget 
how to do it, everybody knew how to tell time by 
the stars, too. Even as recently as Shakespeare's 
time lots of people did. In his play "King Henry 
the Fourth," one of the wagoners in the Rochester 
inn-vard scene savs, 

'Heigh-ho! an' it be not four by the day, I'll be 
hanged; Charles' Wain is over the new chimney, 
and yet our horse is not packed!'" 

"TMiat is Charles' Wain, Uncle Hen.^" asked Paul. 

"It's the same as the big dipper with us," ex- 
plained Uncle Henry. "In England they call it 
Charles' Wain. This will show you why." 

Then Uncle Henry drew this little sketch to show 
how the dipper obligingly becomes Charles' Wain, 
or wagon, when English people look at it. 




116 THE SKY MOVIES 

*' Well," said Paul, ''I'm going to get so I can tell 
time by the dipper clock any time of night and any 
time of year." 

''Me, too!" echoed Peter and Betty. 

"It's very easy," said Uncle Henry. "The posi- 
tion of the clock hand at nine o'clock in February is 
just one-twelfth of the way farther round than its 
January position, going the opposite way a watch 
hand does. In March the nine o'clock position is 
another twelfth of the way round and so on through 
the year. Then, as soon as you know the hand's 
nine o'clock position for any month, it is easy to see 
that at two, three, four, five, or six hours later the 
hand will have moved two, three, four, five, or six 
twenty-fourths of the way round from right to 
left." 

The "moving picture" of the great star clock's 
hand and the dipper on the next page shows their 
position for every month in the year and for every 
hour of the night. You will see that in the long 
winter nights of December the clock hand is visible 
almost three-quarters of the way round, while in the 
short summer nights of June it can be seen through 
less than half a complete revolution. 

When Uncle Henry and the children had looked 
at the star clock and talked about it as long as they 
wanted to, they closed the shutter of the camera and 
all trudged back to Grandfather's farmhouse, but 
Peter and Paul insisted on sitting up while Uncle 
Henry developed the plate that told the stars' story 
of the earth's rotation around its axis. 



FIFTH REEL 



117 




118 THE SKY MOVIES 

Next morning they made a print from the nega- 
tive and it looked hke this: 




You see the stars of the dipper made long circular 
trails, while the pole star remained almost still at the 
centre of all the curves. Since the picture was ex- 
posed for only an hour the curves were only one- 
twenty-fourth of complete circles, as the earth had 
turned for only one of the twenty-four hours while 
the picture was being exposed. 

These four little pictures show that if a boy stood 
on the roof of a merry-go-round while it was run- 
ning, and wanted to keep an opera glass pointed at 
the balloon ascension too, he would have to keep 



FIFTH REEL 



119 



turning himself every moment to avoid turning his 
back on the balloon. The boy turns around on his 
own axis, which is parallel to the axis of the merry- 
go-round. 




r^^^tv 




2 





Now imagine that the revolving world is the 
merry-go-round and that the big telescope, turning 
on an axis that is parallel to the axis of the earth, 
is the boy with the opera glass. Then, when you 
have looked at these next two pictures a moment, 
you will see how an astronomer is able to keep a big 
telescope continually pointing at the same star 
as long as he wants to look at it. The earth 
keeps turning from West to East and the telescope 
keeps turning the opposite way, from East to West 
— so it keeps on pointing at the star, just the 
way the opera glass of the boy riding on the roof 
of the merry-go-round kept on pointing at the 
balloon. 



120 



THE SKY MOVIES 




FIFTH REEL 



121 



The next picture is a photograph of the Yerkes 
telescope, the largest of its kind in the world. It 
keeps pointing at any star that the astronomer 
wants to look at, because it turns round on a slant- 
ing axis that is exactly parallel to the polar axis of 
the world. 




122 THE SKY MOVIES 

The camera that Uncle Henry propped up on the stump to take the 
picture you have just seen — the stars around the pole — was a Kodak 
with a "rapid rectilinear" lens. If you want to take a similar one, be 
sure to open the "iris-diaphragm" of the lens as wide as it will go. You 
will not get a good picture unless the stars are very clear and bright — 
and the moon must be out of the sky. When it is moonlight the camera 
can not see the stars any better than you can. 

If you happen to have a camera with an "anastigmat" lens (F 7.5, 
F 6.3, or larger) you will get a still better picture than the "rectilinear" 
lens will make, because the "anastigmat" lens will let in more light 
from the stars. 

If you have no camera, you can make one that will take quite good 
star pictures. Take an ordinary reading glass, cut a round hole, about 
an inch in diameter, in the end of a cigar box, and fasten the reading 
glass over the opening. Then open the lid of the cigar box, hold a white 
card inside and watch the picture that the reading glass throws on the 
card when you point the lens at a distant tree or building. 

Mark the place where the picture is clearest. Put a card-board par- 
tition in the box at this place. Then, when night comes, go into a dark 
room and lay a glass photographic plate on the partition, with the film 
side toward the lens. Close the box carefully and cover up the reading 
glass with your cap or any other handy piece of dark cloth. 

Now you are ready to take the picture. Go out doors and prop up 
your box camera so that it points toward the pole star. Then uncover 
the lens and leave it for an hour. Cover the lens with the cap again and 
take the camera, with the plate inside, to be developed. 



SIXTH REEL 

THE CHILDREN GET ACQUAINTED WITH OLD SOl's 

FAMILY AND FIND VENUS, MARS, AND THE EARTH 

GROWING IN A PEA POD 

The next morning at breakfast Grandmother told 
Peter and Paul that they might go out to the garden, 
pick a nice watermelon, and put it down in the cool 
cellar until dinner time. 

"Your Uncle Hen," she said, ''will go along and 
tell you which are the ripe ones." 

So the children all trooped out, with Uncle Henry 
bringing up the rear, and for a few minutes they 
were all thumping the melons to find the ripest one. 

"They're not quite as round as the geography 
globe, are they," said Betty, "but the stripes coming 
together at the stem ends make me think of it." 

"They are rather like the meridians coming to- 
gether at the pole of the globe, aren't they.^" Uncle 
Henry agreed. 

He thought a moment, looked off across the field 
beyond the garden, and then said, 

"I'll tell you what we'll do, youngsters, if you feel 
like it. After Pete and Paul have taken this melon 
we've selected down into the cellar we'll start with 
that other big melon over there — the really round 
one with the stem right on top — and play a game 
called 'Old Sol's Family.'" 

123 



124 



THE SKY MOVIES 



"Ooh, great!" cried Betty. "We're in Old Sol's 
family too, aren't we?" 

''Yes, and I wonder if you can tell who all the 
brothers and sisters of our world are," said Uncle 
Henry. 

"Well," said Paul, "I know Mars is one of them." 

''Saturn too!" added Peter, "with his rings. I've 
seen 'em in pictures lots of times." 

"All right," laughed Uncle Henry, "run along 
down in your Grandmother's cellar with the melon 
for dinner and Betty and I will guard our 'Old Sol' 
here on the ground until you get back." 

When the boys returned Paul said, 

"You mean the big round melon is going to stand 
for the sun in our game.^" 

"Exactly," said Uncle Henry. "This melon is 
about a foot and a half thick and nearly round, so 
he'll do for Old Sol very nicely." 

Then Uncle Henry took a bit of stick and began 
scooping out the soft dirt beside the big water- 
melon. He kept on until he had a round, cup-shaped 
hole big enough to hold the melon up to its middle. 
Then he placed the big melon in the hole and leveled 
the dirt smoothly all the way round, like this: 




SIXTH REEL 125 

"What's that for, Uncle Hen?" asked Paul. 

"Well," said his Uncle, "all of Old Sol's family 
revolve around him in circles at the same level or 
'plane,' and this plane goes through the equator of 
the sun — just the way the level of the ground here 
in the garden goes through the center of our half- 
buried melon. So we'll let the top of the level 
ground represent the 'plane of the ecliptic,' as as- 
tronomers call it." 

"What does 'ecliptic' mean.^" inquired Betty. 

"It comes from the word 'eclipse,'" said Uncle 
Henry, "and sometime we will see how eclipses, either 
of the sun or moon, must always occur in the 'plane 
of the ecliptic.'" 

"Well," said Peter, "we started out to find Old 
Sol's family; where is the first member.^" 

"Over there in a green pod hanging on the pea 
vines; you can pick it and bring it over here if you 
like," said Uncle Henry. 

"In a pea pod.^" cried Betty in astonishment. 

"Certainly," said Uncle Henry, "Mercury is the 
littlest brother in Old Sol's family of planets, and 
compared to his father, the sun, represented by our 
big watermelon here. Mercury is the size of a very 
small pea indeed. Let's open the pod Peter has 
there and see if we can find one small enough. Our 
Mercury should really be a little smaller than a 
double B shot, such as you use in your air-rifle." 

"Oh, I've got some BB shot in my pocket. Here's 
one," said Paul. 

"That's fine," said Uncle Henry» "Now you 



126 THE SKY MOVIES 

run into the barn, Peter, and get your Grandfather's 
long tape measure out of his tool chest. We want 
to know how far to put little brother Mercury 
away from his father, the sun." 

When Peter came back with the tapeline, Uncle 
Henry asked Betty to hold the end on the stem of 
the big ''sun-melon." Then he ran out the tape as 
he walked away toward the Stump Meadow. He 
kept on going so far that the children thought there 
must be some mistake and Peter said so. 

"No," said Uncle Henry, laughing, "this 'Old 
Sol's' family of ours is going to be in the right 
proportions. Some of the pictures of the solar 
system you see in atlases and geographies give you 
entirely wrong ideas about the sizes of the planets, 
and their distances from the sun. The planets are 
often shown both too large and too close to the sun. 
Our BB shot, or Mercury, needs to be 62 feet from 
the "sun-melon" in order to show the right propor- 
tional distance of the real Mercury from the sun." 

So Paul put down the BB shot and stuck up a 
twig in the dirt to mark the place. 

"I wonder," said Betty suddenly, with a note of 
anxiety in her voice, "what has become of Mr. 
Puck? We didn't see him all day yesterday. I 
wonder if he got offended about something." 

"It's like this," said Uncle Henry, "Puck has to 
bring so many answers to people in Wonder Rings 
everywhere that he's terribly busy all the time. So 
as soon as you get to be able to answer some of your 
questions yourself he lets you do it. You'll find 



SIXTH REEL 127 

that when you really need Mr. Puck's help again 
he'll appear, just as suddenly as he did the first 
time. You'll find too that the more questions about 
everything that you figure out yourself the more 
you'll be able to." 

"Well," said Peter, ''Puck or no Puck, let's go on 
to the next of Mercury's brothers. Or maybe it's a 
sister. Is it?" he asked Uncle Henry. 

''Yes, it is a sister this time. Only one girl in a 
family of eight though — unless you want to include 
our own earth as a lady." 

"I think we'd better," said Betty, "because 
people talk about 'Mother Earth' you know." 

"Quite right," said Uncle Henry. "Well, then, 
let's go ahead and find Venus, the daughter of Old 
Sol who is just beyond Mercury, between him and 
'Mother Earth.' Peter, give me that pea pod you 
picked." 

"Peter Piper picked a pea pod!" sang Betty. 

"Yes," said Uncle Henry, as he snapped the pod 
open, and picked out two small peas of almost the 
same size, "and the pea pod Peter Piper picked had 
Venus and the earth both in it." 

"Are they really as much alike as that.^" asked 
Betty. 

"Yes," Uncle Henry assured her, "as far as size 
goes, Venus and the earth are as alike as two peas." 

"How big is MarsV asked Peter. 

"Here is Mars,'' said Uncle Henry, as he selected 
a pea a little over half the size of the one representing 
the earth and Venus. 



128 THE SKY MOVIES 

''Come on/' said Paul, "let's see how far be- 
yond Mercury we have to go before we put down 
Venus'' 

Uncle Henry ran out the tapeline again while 
Betty held the end of it at the point where Mercury, 
the BB shot, was placed. After 62 feet of the tape- 
line was out Uncle Henry stopped and said, 

''Bring Venus here, Peter. It is 124 feet from 
the melon where the orbit of our twin sister pea is." 

Peter brought Venus, set it on the ground, and 
stuck another twig up beside the pea to mark the 
spot. 

"Forward march again!" cried Uncle Henry, so 
Betty held the end of the tapeline beside Venus, and 
the tape was run out 62 feet more. 

"I know what to do now," said Peter, and put 
the other pea of the same size as the one used for 
Venus down where Uncle Henry had stopped. 

"There is our 'Mother Earth,'" said Uncle 
Henry, smiling at the pea on the ground. "Better 
mark it with another piece of stick, Paul, or we may 
lose sight of it entirely. Our world seems big to us, 
but it is just a pea in comparison with the big, cir- 
cular path in which it travels round its father, the 
sun. It's no wonder we are a whole year in whirling 
completely round our circular path, is it.^" 

Then Uncle Henry marked on the ground to show 
how many times its own thickness the world traveled 
along its path every hour. 

"It is nine o'clock now," he said. "At ten o'clock 
the earth will be thirty times its own thickness. 



SIXTH REEL 129 

which is about 8,000 miles, along its path toward 
Autumn. How many miles is that?" 

Peter was good at figures and said " 240,000 miles," 
right away. 

"Yes," said Uncle Henry, "and that happens to 
be just about the distance of our moon from the 
earth. Let's find a tiny stone, only about a quarter 
the diameter of this pea, and place it at the right 
distance from 'Mother Earth.'" 

This shows how the earth and the moon looked 
when this was done. The mark on the earth's path 
shows the distance the world travels, wHh the moon 
in tow, in one hour. 

EdrtKK^re Earth Here 

at 9 o clock at 10 o'clock 

Q . 

^ I 

^?o / 



N^^^ 



/ 



N / 

^«Koon 
• 

"Now, let's find Mars,'" cried Peter, "I saw a 
picture in one of papa's books and it was a map of 
Mars, and it said there were 'canals' on it — like the 
Panama Canal, I s'pose." 

"Nobody knows for sure about the canals yet," 
said Uncle Henry, "but I'll show you some other 
interesting things about our little brother planet, 
after we find out where all the rest of Old Sol's 



130 THE SKY MOVIES 

family are located. They have all been small so far, 
and Mars is even smaller." 

Uncle Henry selected a pea from Peter's pod, a 
little over half the size of the ''earth-pea" and 
it was duly deposited 93 feet farther from the 
"earth." 

''The next member of our family of worlds is 
different," said Uncle Henry. ''Jupiter is the next, 
and he is a lot bigger than Mercury, Venus, and 
the earth all put together. We're going to need 
something bigger to represent him. Let's see — how 
abut a green tomato.^ I guess that will do. Paul, 
pick a green tomato about one and three-fourths 
inches across and bring it along. We're going to 
make a big jump now, for it is a long, long way from 
our earth to Jupiter." 

It was a long way, for while Betty held the end of 
the tapeline beside the pea-earth. Uncle Henry went 
farther away, and farther, unrolling the tape as he 
went. The tapeline ran all out and Betty had to go 
forward to the end of it and hold the end there while 
Uncle Henry went a long way farther on. They had 
gone over 650 feet from the "pea-Mars" before he 
called to Paul to bring the green tomato and set it 
down. 

By this time the children and Uncle Henry were 
930 feet from the melon that stood for the sun. 
They were away out of Grandfather's garden, out 
nearly across the ten-acre pasture, on the way to 
the Stump Meadow. 

"My," said Peter, "if the sun looks as small from 



SIXTH REEL 131 

Jupiter as the melon back there does from this 
tomato here, I'd hate to Hve on Jupiter.^' 

"You would get very little sunlight and not much 
heat, that's sure," Uncle Henry agreed. 

"How much farther is the next member of Old 
Sol's family?" asked Betty. 

"Oh, about 830 feet," said Uncle Henry. "I'm 
glad you mentioned it, for we'll need another small 
green tomato — a baby one — to represent SaturUy 
the next planet." 

Paul ran back into the garden and brought one 
about an inch and a half across. 

"That'll do fine." said Uncle Henry, "let's measure 
ofiP the distance and put Saturn where he belongs. 
Did you set up a stick beside Jupiter, so that we 
can find him again, Paul.^" 

Paul had. 

Then Uncle Henry and Betty used the tapeline 
again and found the place for Saturn, away out in 
the centre of the Stump Meadow, over 1760 feet, or 
a third of a mile, away from the sun-melon in Grand- 
father's garden. 

The place for Saturn just happened to be right 
close to the Fairy Ring, so when Saturn was set 
down on the ground in his right place, the children 
and Uncle Henry sat down on the grass in the Ring 
to rest a little. 

"How many more children has Old Sol.^" asked 
Peter. 

"Two," said Uncle Henry, "and if we want to go 
on and put them in their proper places, we can repre- 



132 THE SKY MOVIES 

sent them by two marbles, each about half an inch 
in diameter." 

"How far are they from Saturn?'' asked Paul. 

"Well," said Uncle Henry, "the spaces between 
the planets get wider and wider the farther you go 
from Old Sol. The next planet, called Uranus, 
would be a whole third of a mile farther beyond 
Saturn, and if we wanted to put Neptune, the last 
planet, in place, we should have to keep going until 
we were 300 feet more than a mile from the 'sun- 
melon' back in Grandpa's garden." 

"My," cried Betty, "let's just pretend we've 
done those two." 

"Shall we?" asked Uncle Henry of the two boys. 

"Sure," they agreed. 

"All right," said Uncle Henry, "and in place of 
doing that I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll play 
'Old Sol's movies.' It's a game that will show us 
how Old Sol's children move in the sky over our 
heads." 

"Fine!" cried all the children, "how do we 
start.^" 

"We start by being named," said Uncle Henry. 
"Peter, you are Mars; Paul, you are Mercury; 
Betty shall be Venus; and I'll be the earth. Now 
we'll all go back and find the BB shot that stands 
for Mercury, and the three peas that stand for the 
others. When we've found them we'll each stand 
in the spots where they are. Then we shall see what 
we shall see." 

''Mercury,'' ''Venus," and "Mars" jumped up 



SIXTH REEL 133 

and raced off back toward the garden, while ''Uncle 
Henry Earth" followed as fast as he could. 

When he arrived at the place where the twig 
marked the place of the "pea-earth," the children 
all had found their stations. If you could have 
looked down upon the garden from above, the 
children and Uncle Henry would have looked like 
this, except that they would have been a good deal 
farther apart. 






..." BETTY VENUS 




v^rCLE HENRY EAFTH 



VETER MARS 




The dotted circles show the paths the planets 
travel around the sun. 

"Betty," called Uncle Henry, "do you know the 
name of the bright star you saw in the west every 
evening last spring, just after sunset? It came into 



134 



THE SKY MOVIES 



sight almost before the glow was gone from the 
sky." 

"The evening star," Betty called back from her 
place in Venus' position. 

''Yes," said Uncle Henry, ''it was the 'evening 
star,' but its right name was Venus. Paul, you 
leave your position as Mercury a little while. Give 
Betty Grandfather's tapeline and the ball you have 
in your pocket. Now you take the other end of 
the tape and hold it on the top of the 'sun-melon.' 
Betty, hold the ball up over your head." 

The children did these things and were 
in this position. 




VSJlfl/S 




"Now," said Uncle Henry, "I will FARTE 
turn around and round just as the 
earth does on its axis every day. No matter how I 
turn, Betty is in line with the sun and with me. If 
the melon was a bright light like the sun, the light 



SIXTH REEL 135 

from it would shine only on the side of the ball away 
from me, and the side of it toward me would be 
dark. I couldn't see it at all." 

''Do you mean to say," cried Peter, who had left 
his place in Mars' position and come nearer to Uncle 
Henry, "that the planets aren't like the stars .^^ 
Don't they shine all the time? Don't they give light 
themselves.^ 

''No," said Uncle Henry, "the planets shine 
only where the sunlight hits them. They are dark 
bodies like the moon. You remember how the moon 
was at 'new moon' position? Well, that's the way 
the Venus-ball in Betty's hand is now. I see only 
its dark side. Of course if Venus should get right 
exactly in line with the sun, as it sometimes does, 
we could see it as a black dot crossing the face of the 
sun, but not otherwise." 

Then Uncle Henry explained that when the al- 
manac says, "Venus will be in infer or conjunction^^ 
on a certain day, it simply means that Venus will 
then be in line with the sun and the earth and be- 
tween them. Sometimes almanacs don't say "con- 
junction" in words, but use a little mark like this 
that means conjunction : (^ 

If the almanac says ''Venus in superior conjunc- 
tion'' it means that Venus will be in line with the 
earth and sun, but on the opposite or far side of the 
sun. Here are two little drawings that show the 
position of Venus, the sun, and the earth at both 
times when they are in line. 



136 



THE SKY MOVIES 




SupG>rior Conjuncirion 
Marks in Almatiac: 
d Q O superior 




Inferior GDnjunchon. 
Marks in Almanac: 
O O O ^'^f^f^or 

''What are those other two little marks, beside 
the conjunction mark?" asked Betty. 

''The first one," said Uncle Henry, "is a crude 
drawing of Venus' hand mirror in which she admires 
herself. It always stands for Venus in almanacs. 
The other, the circle with a dot in it, always stands 
for the sun. The three little signs followed by the 
word 'superior' mean, 'superior conjunction of 
Venus and the sun.'" 



SIXTH REEL 137 

When the children understood all about this, 
Uncle Henry said, 

''Now, Betty, while you keep the tapeline from 
the 'sun-melon' tight, move away from me toward 
the right. Move around the 'sun-melon' the op- 
posite way the hands of a watch do. That's right. 
How hold up the ball over your head again and we'll 
imagine the melon over there gives bright light like 
the sun." 

"Oh," cried Paul, "I begin to see what is going 
to happen. It's going to act just the way the moon 
did." 

"Fine!" said Uncle Henry enthusiastically, "you 
go on and tell what will happen, Paul." 

"Well," said Paul, "the ball in Betty's hand will 
show Uncle Henry's 'Op tick Brothers' more and 
more of its lighted side as she moves in the Venus- 
path from the near side to the far side of the sun. 
When she gets directly opposite to Uncle Henry the 
Venus-ball will be 'full' like the full moon. When 
she is only a quarter way around, the Venus-ball 
will be 'half -full' and when Betty is just starting 
away from the part of her path nearest to 'Uncle 
Henry Earth' the ball will show a crescent like the 
young moon." 

"But why," called Betty, "can't we see the 
crescent- Venus and full-Venus the way we do the 
crescent and full moon.^" 

"Just because Venus is too far away from our 
unaided eyes. When you go to the theatre, and sit 



138 THE SKY MOVIES 

away back in the top balcony, you can see the face 
of an actor, but you need an opera glass to see the 
expression on his face. Just so you need a small 
telescope to show the 'phases' or expressions of the 
face of Venus, Here is the way they look through a 
telescope." 

Uncle Henry drew a little book from his pocket 
and showed the children this picture. 




"Is the 'full- Venus' smaller because she is so 
far away then, on the other side of her path around 
Old Sol.^" asked Peter. 

"That's it," answered Uncle Henry, ''Venus is 
134 million miles farther away from the earth when 
she is full than when her face looks like a little 
crescent moon." 

"I'd like to know," said Paul, "why Venus is 
sometimes the evening star in the West and why 
she sometimes goes away entirely." 

''Venus doesn't go away entirely for very long," 
said Uncle Henry, "only for a few days while she is 
in line with the earth and the sun — in 'conjunction' 



SIXTH REEL 



139 



you know. After that you would see Venus in the 
morning sky before sunrise, if you got up early and 
looked for her. For a long time the ancient people 
who lived thousands of years ago thought that the 
'morning star' and the 'evening star' were two 
different planets. They named the morning star 
'Phosphorus^ and the evening star 'Hesperus,' but 
they finally found out that they were both Venus, 
They discovered, you see, that Venus simply passed 
in front of or behind the sun when she stopped 
being an evening star, and appeared on the other 
side of the sun as a morning star. These little draw- 
ings will help you see how this happens." 

Uncle Henry then took out the notebook he always 
carried in his pocket and made the children these 
moving pictures, showing how Venus is an evening 
star part of the time and a morning star the other 
part. 




^oNSfcT EARTH sufiffi^g 



140 



THE SKY MOVIES 



When Venus is at the left of the dotted Hne join- 
ing the earth and the sun, she is seen in the West at 
sunset as an evening star. When approaching 
"inferior conjunction" she is very bright and shows 
a crescent through a telescope like this: 




Photograph taken by E. E. Barnard, of the 
Yerkes Observatory, with the Bruce tele- 
scope. 

But when Venus has passed to the right of the 
line, past ''inferior conjunction," she is seen in the 
East before sunrise as a morning star. 




^^1^' 



SIXTH REEL 141 

"You see," said Uncle Henry, ''sunrise and sun- 
set aren't things that happen once every day aijd 
then are over and done with. There is both a sun- 
rise and a sunset going on every minute. Sunrise is 
constantly happening at the line where the surface 
of the earth comes out of shadow in turning toward 
the sun; and sunset is constantly occurring on the 
opposite side of the world, where the surface of it is 
turning away from the sun and entering the shadow 
we call night." 

''Isn't that wonderful.^" cried Paul. "If I was a 
poet I would write a poem about it." 

"The right poet could write a good one," said 
Uncle Henry. "Well, as I started to say, when 
Grandfather's farm gets to the place where it passes 
out of the sunlit side of the world, around into the 
shadow side, we see Venus in the Western sky, if 
she happens to be East of the sun. 

" Venus is also seen as both a morning and evening 
star when she is in the part of her path that is on 
the opposite side of the sun. These two little dia- 
grams show how she is a morning star up to the time 
she passes through 'superior conjunction,' behind 
the sun, and how she becomes an evening star right 
away afterwards. 

''Venus isn't so bright then, I suppose.^^" said Paul. 

"Quite right," Uncle Henry agreed. "Not so 
bright because she is farther away." 

"Well, what is Mercury doing all this time.^" 
asked Peter. "He has a path around the sun too, 
hasn't he?" 



142 



THE SKY MOVIES 




^^HSt^^MRTH^^t^A/ZJ/^^ 




,Hit< ifiRJH "^"*«, 



''Yes," said Uncle Henry, ''and Mercury becomes 
a morning and evening star too — much of tener than 
Venus does in fact — for it takes him only 88 days 
to go completely around the sun, while Venus takes 
225 days for the trip. You know how long it takes 
us on the earth." 

"Three hundred and sixty-five!" the children 
answered in chorus. 

"Three hundred and sixty -five and a quarter, to 
be exact," said Uncle Henry. 

"Now tell us about Mars,'' commanded Peter, 
"does Mars have conjunctions and phases too.^" 

"No," said Uncle Henry, "not in the same way. 
Mars' path round the sun is outside of ours, and 
that makes an important difference. Mercury and 
Venus are called 'inferior planets' because their 
paths are inside that of the earth. Mars and all 
the rest of Old Sol's children are called 'superior 
planets' because their paths are outside of the 
earth's. A picture will show you the differences 
at once." 



SIXTH REEL 



143 



Uncle Henry then made this diagram in his note- 
book. 




"You can easily see," explained Uncle Henry, 
''that since the paths of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn 
are outside of the earth's, they can never have 
'inferior conjunctions' for they never pass between 
the earth and the sun. When any one of the superior 
planets. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune, 
gets in line with the earth on the same side of the 
sun we say it is 'in opposition' to the earth. The 
mark for 'opposition' in the almanac is like this: 8. 
This picture will show all these things better than 
words." 



144 



THE SKY MOVIES 



PAT H OF MA RS 




EARTH -1^-- 



Uncle Henry then showed the children, with the 
help of this diagram, that Venus never gets more 
than halfway up the sky from the horizon to the 
overhead point, either as a morning or an evening 
star. When she is at her highest point in the Eastern 
morning sky, she is at the position in her path marked 
"greatest elongation West." In the same way, 
Venus is at the point in her path marked, ''Greatest 
elongation East" when she is at her highest point 
in the Western sky, in the evening after sunset. The 
same things are true of Mercury, except that he 
never gets much over a fifth of the way up the sky 
from the horizon to the overhead point. This is 
true because his path is so much smaller than that 
of Venus. An inferior planet is never seen directly 



SIXTH REEL 



145 



overhead, but the superior planets, Mars, Jupiter, Sa- 
turn, and so on, can be seen at any height in the sky. 
Here are two httle pictures that show why Mercury 
is never seen much over one-fifth of the way up the 
sky, and Venus not over half the way up. 




If you could look at the sunset sky, when both 
Mercury and Venus are at "greatest elongation 
East," you would see the sun along the line AB, 
Mercury along the line AC, and Venus along the 
line AD. The sky would then look to you like the 
next picture with Venus much over twice as high 
up as Mercury, As a matter of fact, Mercury is 
very hard to see, because he is always so close to the 
sun that the sunset glow drowns out his light, and 
when the sun has been down long enough for the 
sky to get sufficiently dark so we can see Mercury, 
why Mercury has just about gone down behind the 
horizon himself! 



146 



THE SKY MOVIES 



^WWWIiW/ 




.nercary 



When the children said they understood all these 
actions of Old Sol's children it was already after 
dinner time, so the meeting adjourned with Uncle 
Henry's promise to take them all to a ''movie-show" 
in the evening. 

''But," said Betty, "there isn't any movie, not 
unless we go to town, and that's six miles!" 

"Uncle Hen means Mr. Puck's movies — on the 
spider web in the barn," cried Paul. " Thinking of 
pictures, you know, and watching 'em appear on 
the spider web screen." 

"Oh, goody!" cried Betty, "and I do hope Puck'U 
be there!" 

"Me, too!" agreed Paul. "Let's think up some 
questions this afternoon that we can't answer our- 
selves, so he'll just have to bring the answers." 

Then the children decided in favor of dinner, and 
fishing in the creek afterwards. 



SEVENTH REEL 

IN WHICH BETTY FINDS OUT HOW MUCH CAN BE TOLD 

WITHOUT WORDS AND WE GET BETTER ACQUAINTED 

WITH OLD sol's CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN 

The sun wasn't even out of sight when Uncle Henry 
and the three children met in the barn after supper. 
Mr. Puck's movies weren't hke ordinary ones, so it 
didn't matter that it wasn't dark yet in the barn. 

Peter and Paul put a board across two low saw- 
horses for the audience to sit on and they were ready 
to begin. The big spider web screen in the corner 
behind the feed box was right in front of the audi- 
ence, ready to begin too. 

Betty looked around eagerly for Puck, but he was 
nowhere to be seen. 

Uncle Henry looked quietly at the screen — think- 
ing a picture in his mind, and in a moment it began 
to appear dimly on the dusty, spider-woven screen. 

The picture was such a queer shape that none of 
the children could make it out at all. It was a 
funny-looking symbol or emblem like this: 



148 THE SKY MOVIES 

\Miile the children were wondering what it could 
possibly be the sj^mbol began to change. Heads 
appeared on the ends of the curved lines and a stick 
appeared between them. Finally they became 
snakes, like this: 




''Oh," cried Paul, "I've seen something like that 
before. Why, it was on the uniform Uncle Henry 
wore during the war." 

''Yes," said Peter, "and Uncle Henry was in the 
Medical Corps. That thing means that the soldier 
who wears it is in the Medical Service." 

"Quite right," said Uncle Henry, "it is used as a 
doctor's emblem everywhere, and has been for 
a long time. Now see if you can tell who owned 
the emblem of physicians among the ancient 
people." 

Then the rod with the snakes began to get smaller 
and smaller on the spider web screen, and a figure 
of a man began to appear. ^Mien he had become 
really clear he had the stick with the snakes in his 
hand, and the children saw that he had wings on his 
feet and on his cap, like this: 



SEVENTH REEL 149 




"Why, that's the flying Mercury we have on the 
hall table at home!" exclaimed Paul. 

''Yes/' said Uncle Henry, ''and if you look in 
the almanac you will find that the little symbol we 
saw first is always used to stand for Mercury, the 
planet. The little mark is still called by its Latin 
name, which is 'caduceus.''' 

"What is the mark that stands for beautiful 
Venus, Uncle Henry .^" asked Betty. 

"What is it that every woman likes to use if she 
is beautiful.'^" asked Uncle Henry in return. 

"A mirror!" exclaimed Betty promptly. 

"Righto!" laughed Uncle Henry, "well, watch 
the screen for it." 

The children all watched, and in a moment this 
little drawing appeared. 



150 



THE SKY MOVIES 




"Is that Venus' emblem in the almanac? "asked 
Paul. 

"Yes," said Uncle Henry. "Watch the screen 
again and you'll see how easy it is to turn our 
symbol of Venus into her mirror and back 
again." 

The children did, while the mirror-symbol turned 
into a real hand mirror, like this : 




Then the mirror got smaller, while a woman's 
figure slowly appeared. When she was clear she 
was the Venus de Milo, with a mirror in her 
hand. 

That's how she looked before she lost her arm," 



SEVENTH REEL 



151 



said Uncle Henry. ''At least, that is how some 
people think she looked." 




''Mars is next!" cried Peter. 

The Venus was already fading out on the screen 
and when it had entirely gone another almanac 
symbol began to appear. It looked like this: 




Then, as before, the outlines slowly dissolved and 
the picture gradually changed into a picture of a 
shield and a spear, like this: 



152 



THE SKY MOVIES 




''Mars was the God of War, wasn't he?" asked 
Betty. 

''Sure/' said Peter, "anybody knows that! Look 
at his shield and spear." 

"Well, I think he's horrid! I don't want to 
see him. I'm going to shut my eyes if he ap- 
pears." 

Uncle Henry said nothing, but kept on thinking 
pictures, and in a moment a very strange-looking 
symbol appeared on the spider web in place of 
Mars' shield and spear. It was sort of a figure 4, 
like this: 




What could it be? The children were puzzled 
until the figure 4 began gradually to take the 
shape of a bird. In a moment more it had turned 
into an eagle, with his beak toward the left, like 
this: 



SEVENTH REEL 



153 




"The eagle/' said Uncle Henry, "was the par- 
ticular favorite of Jupiter, the chief of the Greek 
Gods, so the almanac uses the symbol of the eagle 
to stand for Jupiter himself. The King of Birds for 
the King of Gods, you see." 

Then the eagle faded from the cobweb screen, 
and as soon as it was gone the next picture that 
Uncle Henry was thinking about started to appear. 
It was just as queer a shape as the figure 4 had been, 
and looked like this: 




"It would almost be a question mark if there 
was a dot under it," said Peter. 

"Oh, look!" cried Paul, "what it's turning 
into." 

As the sjanbol faded out and the object it stood for 
faded in, the children recognized it just as quickly 
as you will. 



154 THE SKY MOVIES 




"It's a sickle!" exclaimed Betty. ''Why is it a 
sickle, Uncle Henry?" 

''Because it stands for Saturn,'' answered Uncle 
Henry, "and Saturn was the God of the Harvest 
among the ancient people who named the planet 
for him." 

"\Miat comes next, Uncle Hen?" asked Peter. 

"There are two more planets," said Uncle Henry, 
"and their names are Uranus and Neptune, but they 
are so far away and we know so little about them 
that if you don't mind we won't bother with them at 
all." 

The children agreed to pass over Uranus and 
Neptune, just as we often pass over our very distant 
relatives at Christmas time. 

"These five planets," said Uncle Henry, ''Mer- 
cury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, have been 
known and watched by people for thousands of years. 
It was because they moved slowly about among the 
other stars that people named them 'planets,' which 
simply means 'wanderers.' After awhile, people 
noticed that the planets did not move haphazard 
among the other stars but all followed the same 
path, which was named the 'zodiac' 



SEVENTH REEL 155 

"It is the same path the sun take^ in the daytime, 
so you know right away that you will never see any 
of the planets in a part of the sky where you have 
never seen the sun." 

"Can't we see some ^close-ups' of Old Sol's family 
to-night, Uncle Hen?" asked Paul. "You know — 
big pictures like the faces on the movie screen when 
the villain glares at the heroine." 

"Oh, yes," pleaded Betty, "let's see the canals on 
Mars, an' everything." 

Uncle Henry looked doubtful and shook his head. 

"I've seen such pictures, Betty," he said, "but 
I hardly believe I remember them plainly enough to 
think them onto the spider web across so you can 
see them." 

"Oh," cried Paul suddenly, "look! Look at the 
web!" 

Everybody turned to look, and were astonished 
to see a picture forming slowly on the spider web 
screen. 

"Oh, I know!" cried Betty, "it's Mr. Puck doing 
it. He's coming to help us out. It's Puck who is 
thinking the picture." 

And so it was, for in a moment the children heard 
his squirrel-like laugh and there Puck sat on top of 
the feed box, with his long, green legs curled up 
under him. One moment he wasn't there at all, and 
next moment he was. It was astonishing the way 
Puck came and went, without a second's warning — 
just the way you think of things and forget them. 

Meanwhile the picture on the spider web was 



156 THE SKY MOVIES 

getting plainer. It was a globe, turning slowly 
round upon its axis, and at the north pole of it was 
a white spot, like this: 




Photograph from Yerkes Observatory. 

''It looks like the world, with all the white snow 
and ice at the north pole," said Paul. 

''It is a world," said Uncle Henry, "but not ours. 
It is our little brother Mars, and the white cap on 
his head is just what you thought — a field of frozen 
ice and snow around the north pole. We know this 
because when it is Summer on Mars the white snow- 
cap melts and melts and gets smaller and smaller 
until it entirely disappears. It takes a telescope 



SEVENTH REEL 



157 



at least three inches in diameter to 
enable you to see the polar cap on 
Mars/' 

Here Mr. Puck picked up a long 
straw from the top of the feed box 
and waved it across the picture like a 
wand. At once the white cap at the 
pole of Mars began to shrink, and get 
smaller and smaller until it was all 
gone. This moving picture shows how 
it happened. On Mars Summer is six 
months long, because his year is twice 
as long as ours. 

''Sometimes," said Uncle Henry, 
^^ Mars is too far away to see the polar 
caps well, even in a powerful telescope. 
This is when he is on the opposite 
side of his path from us, near the 'su- 
perior conjunction' position we learned 
about. It is when Mars is on the 
same side of the sun with us that he 
is biggest and plainest. That is the 
time astronomers study the polar caps 
and try to see whether he really has 
canals or not." 

This little picture on the next page 
shows the different sizes Mars appears 
to be when nearest, farthest away, and 
halfway between. 



■m 



w^ 



158 



THE SKY MOVIES 




"Do Mercury and Venus wear 'polar caps' too?" 
asked Betty. 

''No/' said Uncle Henry, "there is very little to 
see through a telescope on either Mercury or Venus. 
Their changes in 'phase/ from full to crescent and 
back again are the main things about them/' 

Puck waved his wand of straw across the picture 
on the screen and it vanished. In its place a great 
globe appeared with broad stripes across it, like this: 




'Now," said Uncle Henry, "you will see some of 
Old Sol's grandchildren. Does anybody find them 
in the picture.^" 

"I do," said Paul, "aren't those four little round 
dots the babies of the big round globe .^" 

"Yes," replied Uncle Henry, "and the big round 
globe is Jupiter, the biggest of all Old Sol's family. 
Jupiter has four little children, or moons, that can 
be seen easily even in a very good field glass. There 
are others besides, but they are so tiny it takes a 



SEVENTH REEL 



159 



very big telescope to see them. It takes a three- 
inch telescope to see the belts of cloud that Jupiter 
always wears around his middle." 

"Do Jupiter s children all have paths around him 
too — the way we, and Mars, and Venus have paths 
around our father, Old Sol.^" 

''Yes, that's right," agreed Uncle Henry, "and 
so we cannot always see four of them at once. Some- 
times they get behind Jupiter and go out of sight." 

Mr. Puck waved his straw wand over the screen 
again, and the moons of Jupiter began moving back 
and forth across the round globe. They were really 
going round and round Jupiter but they seemed just 
to swing back and forth like pendulums. 

This is the moving Picture Mr. Puck made the 
children see on the cobweb screen: 




160 THE SKY MOVIES 

"Did you ever hear of Galileo? '' asked Uncle Henry. 

The children had heard of him but didn't know 
anything about him. 

"Old One/' cried Puck suddenly to Uncle Henry, 
"I knew Galileo well. He kept me busy all his 
life — fetching him answers. He wished to find out 
everything, especially about the stars. I well re- 
member the night he pointed the new telescope he 
had just invented at Jupiter. He gave a cry of joy 
and sat up all night, looking through the telescope, 
for he had seen what no living man had even seen 
before him — the moons of Jupiter,'^ 

Puck waved the straw wand once more. The little 
moon-children of Jupiter the giant planet, faded out, 
and finally belted Jupiter himself was gone. 

The picture that came in his place had hardly be- 
come clear before Peter and Paul cried, both together, 

"That's Saturn, and his rings!" 

Saturn appeared like this on the spider's movie 
screen. 




Photograph taken by Mr. 3, E. Barnard, of the Yerkes Observ- 
atory, with the 60 inch reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson 
Observatory in California. 



SEVENTH REEL 161 

"Has Saturn any children, Uncle Hen?" asked 
Peter. 

"Only eight!" smiled Uncle Henry, " — but they 
are all very small. Mr. Puck, will you please show 
us how Saturn and his eight children would look in 
a big telescope." 

Puck again waved his wand of straw across the 
spider web and this picture slowly appeared. 




"Are we going to see a movie of Saturn's moon- 
children going around him in circles too.^" asked 
Betty eagerly. 

"It would be just about like the movie of Jupiter," 
said Uncle Henry. "Shall we show it to them, Mr. 
Puck — or make them imagine it for themselves.^" 

"Locked doors need keys but once. Old One." 
said Mr. Puck mysteriously. 

The children didn't know what he meant until the 
next picture had become clear on the screen. It was 
a picture of Betty herself. 



162 



THE SKY MOVIES 



Then Paul appeared, walking round her in a circle. 
In his hand he held a big humming top, like this: 




Paul held the humming top so that its handle, or 
axis, slanted just about the same as the axis of the 
geography globe does. 

As he walked around Betty in a circle, the moving 
picture of Paul on the screen kept the handle of the 
humming top always slanted in the same direction. 




1 



SEVENTH REEL 



163 



When the Betty in the picture looked at the 
humming top in this position, the axis, or handle, 
was tipped toward her, and she could see the upper 
side of the top, like this: 




But when Paul had walked a quarter way round 
the circle into this position — 




164 



THE SKY MOVIES 



— the top looked like this from Betty's place at 
the center of the circle: 




Then the Paul in the picture went a quarter of 
the way farther round so that the top was in this 
position — 




SEVENTH REEL 



165 



— and the Betty in the picture could see the bottom 
side of the humming top, Hke this: 




When the Paul in the moving picture had walked 
three-quarters of the way round the circle, still 
holding the handle of the top slanting in the same 
direction, the two picture-children and the top 
looked like this — 




166 THE SKY MOVIES 

— and Betty in the picture again saw the edge of 
the humming top as a straight hne, without seeing 
any more of the upper part of the top than she did 
of its bottom part. 

When the Paul in the picture had walked the rest 
of the way round his path, the humming top looked 
just the same to Betty in the picture as it did when 
Paul started to carry it around her. 

''Now you know," said Uncle Henry, ''how the 
rings of Saturn change their appearance to people 
on our earth while Saturn is traveling in his path 
around the sun. It takes him twenty-nine and one- 
half years to do it, so when we look through a tele- 
scope, and see Saturn looking as the humming top 
did in the first picture — 




— we know that in about seven years, when Saturn 
is a quarter way round his path, he will look as the 
humming top did in the second picture. 



SEVENTH REEL 



167 



)M 




**Then in about seven years more we can expect 
Saturn to look as the humming top did when Betty 
could see the underside of it. 




"Then, of course, in about seven years more, 
Saturn will again show us only the edge of his rings, 
and when he has completed his journey round the 
sun the upper side of the rings will again be visible, 
as they were when his trip started." 

Here is a moving picture of the way Saturn looks 
from the earth through one whole trip around the 
sun. The dates beside the pictures show how he 
will look for quite a long time to come too. 

"So that's all of Old Sol's family we are going to 
see.f^" asked Paul, as the last picture faded from the 
spider web and the children noticed that the barn 
was almost dark. 



168 



THE SKY MOVIES 



1921 



1922 



1924 



1926 



1928 



1930 



1932 



"There is very little 
known about Uranus and 
Neptune, our most distant 
relatives," said Uncle Henry, 
"and nothing as interest- 
ing to see as the white cap 
Mars wears. 

"Mr. Puck/' he asked of 
the little green man, "have 
you any more moving pic- 
tures on the program of this 
theatre to-night.^' 

There was no answer, and 
when the children and Uncle 
Henry peered through the 
dusk there was no Mr. Puck 
to be seen. 

Just then, however, Betty 
noticed a faint glow on the 
spider web, and as it grew 
in brightness the audience 
read these words. Puck's 
parting message. 



1934 



" When I undertake to tell 
the best I find I cannot, . . 
I become a dumb man." * 



1936 



* Walt Whitman; " k Song of the 
Rolling Earth." 



SEVENTH REEL 



169 



The children were quiet a moment or two, wonder- 
ing just what the words on the spider web meant. 

Then Betty said, *' Those words on the screen 
don't mean that we have to answer all our own 
questions after this, do they, Uncle Henry? Can't 
we ask Mr. Puck any more.^ ^Miy, we'll never get 
over wanting to ask Mr. Puck for answers about 
the stars, and the earth, and its flowers, and clouds, 
and trees, and birds, and animals and — and — and — 
everything — at least not 'until we're quite grown 
up!'' 

"I hope not even then,*' said Uncle Henry quietly. 
"Mr. Puck just means that he cannot tell you the 
most wonderful answers in the world until you are a 
little older and begin to wonder what they are." 

In a moment the picture of the Fairy Ring gradu- 
ally appeared on the screen. 




170 THE SKY MOVIES 

''Oh, I see," said Betty, ''we must wonder and 
wonder — about bigger and bigger things — Puck will 
bring answers only to those who are in Wonder 
Rings." 

Uncle Henry nodded his head and smiled, and the 
Fairy Ring faded from the spider's movie screen. 












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